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Class^Uiiili 
Book ."UL&L 



OFFICIAL DONATION. 



THE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM 



jy; 



OF 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 



OPINIONS OK THE; 

STATE SUPERINTENDENTS 

OF WISCONSIN. 



COMPILED BY 

OLIVER E. WELLS. 




MADISON, WISCONSIN: 

DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY, STATE PRINTER. 
1894. 



Office of State Superintendent, 

Madison, Wis., Dec. 22, 1894. 

To the Legislature of Wisconsin: 

Chapter 178, Laws of 1893, which appointed me a com- 
missioner to prepare and submit, in the form of a bill, a 
proposd revision of the school law, provided that the bill 
should be accompanied by a report containing a statement 
of the reasons for any proposed changes. 

In accordance with these provisions I have the honor 
to submit the following document, compiled from the re- 
ports of former state superintendents, setting forth the 
reasons for substituting the township unit of school gov- 
erment for the independent district system. That part 
of the bill which provides for the change is so far a new 
statute that it must be considered independently upon its 
merits. While retaining the essential features of the 
present township law it aims to secure a more complete 
and consistent system. 

Changes in the laws relating to county superintendents, 
e xaminations and certificates, and free high schools, are 
indicated, with a brief statement of the reasons therefor. 

OLIVER E. WELLS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



That the common school is the most important factor in our 
school system is a statement that needs no proof. It has been 
affirmed by all who have thought deeply on school problems. 
The proposal to substitute the town for the indefinite and ir- 
regular territory known as the. school district as the unit of 
the system has received the approval of every state superin- 
tendent for thirty years. In the administration of school law 
these men, with singular unanimity, have come to feel that 
the obstacles that impede the progress and impair the useful- 
ness of the wayside schools are insuperable. The school sys- 
tem, like every other function of administration, should be 
ecomomically administered, but it must be remembered that 
the primal purpose in the establishment and maintenance of 
common schools is not to save money to the taxpayers but to 
extend the advantages of a common school education to every 
child in the state. To plant and maintain schools so that no- 
body shall be deprived of school privileges and the advantages 
shall be as equally and as widely distributed as possible is the 
purpose that ought to guide in the execution of the system. 
That districts | will ever be formed or their boundaries read- 
justed with reference to the larger interests of the schools as 
a whole, or the convenience of individual pupils, under our 
present system, I do not believe. 

Our present districts were organized as the exigencies of 
settlement seemed to demand. About these districts there 
has grown up a local feeling that resists their abolition where 
they have become wholly unnecessary and the readjustment of 
boundaries where they have ceased to accommodate their res- 
idents. Every proposition to effect either of these purposes is 
contested by warring factions each of which is eager to length- 
en its own cords and to strengthen its own stakes. These 



conflicts are seldom determined by the convenience of pupils 
but almost invariably the important question is, can the dis- 
trict afford to lose this source of taxation. Supervisors to 
whom these questions are referred are rarely chosen because 
of their knowledge of school affairs or on account of their sup- 
posed fitness to discharge the duties of school officers. Not 
unfrequently these officers refuse to readjust district bounda- 
ries while admitting the equity of the cases referred to them, 
and avow their unwillingness to incur the hostility of one or 
another of the contending parties. 

Under our present law each district is required to maintain 
six months' school on penalty of losing its share in the bounty 
of the state. Under its operation one district in a town must 
do this on an assessed valuation of $4,000 while another in the 
same town has an assessed valuation of $140,000. It is not 
uncommon for the pro rata and the per capita tax to be ten 
times as great in one district as it is in another of the same 
town. 

Nowit is submitted that there are very few setttled towns 
in the sttif- that are not able, without oppressive taxation, to 
give the advantages of a common school education to every 
child in the town if the taxes can be borne equally and school- 
houses can be located so as to do the "greatest good to the 
greatest number." When the town bears the tax for the sup- 
port of schools in common, those who occupy the poorer por- 
tions of the town will claim and in the main will secure equal 
advantages with those who live in the more prosperous por- 
tions. There would then be no purpose in denying to families 
the privilege of sending their children to the most accessible 
schoolhonse. Petty strifes and neighborhood dissensions would 
he less likely to control the action of boards representing the 
entire town. 

Every superintendent for thirty years has taken office with 
the avowed purpose of improving the condition of the common 
schools and every superintendent has failed in his purpose. 
The fact remains that taken as a whole it is the judgment of 
those best acquainted with the administration of our system 
that the wayside school is not better today than it was thirty 
years ago. Every other school agency has been greatly im- 



proved in that time. The fact that the common school has 
not improved is prima facie evidence that the system itself 
is defective. It is not claimed that the substitution of the 
town for the district will obviate all difficulties that beset the 
administration of our school system. No scheme of govern- 
ment is perfect. The scheme hereby submitted would doubt- 
less reveal imperfections in its administration, but it has been 
submitted to the ablest teachers in the state and it is theii 
unanimous judgment that its adoption and execution would 
be a long step in advance in the management of the most im- 
portant factor of our school system, and the most potent ele- 
ment of our future well-being. 



THE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 



TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT. 

(From the Annual Report of Lyman 0. Draper, 1858.) 
There is a revolution going on in our country regarding the 
division of townships into geographical districts. The dis- 
trict system has been so long in general use that the people 
are slow to discover its inequalities and inconveniences, and 
hesitate to make a change, even when convinced of a better ar- 
rangement. That the township system of school government 
has many and decided advantages over the old district plan, 
let facts and experience testify: 

"As a general fact," says Horace Mann, in his Tenth Annual 
Report as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 
"the schools of undistricted towns are greatly superior to thos( 
in districted towns; — and for obvious reasons. The first class 
of towns, — the undistricted, — provide all the schoolhouses, and, 
through the agency of the school committee, employ all the 
teachers. If one good schoolhouse is provided for any section 
of the town, all the other sections, having contributed their re- 
spective portions of the expense to erect the good house, will 
demand one equally good for themselves ; and the equity of 
such a demand is so obvious that it cannot be resisted. If, on 
the other hand, each section were a separate district, and 
bound for the whole expense of a new house, if it should erect 
one, it would be tempted to continue an old! house, long after 
it had ceased to be comfortable ; and, indeed, as experience has 
too often and sadly proved, long after it has ceased to be ten- 
antable. So, too, in undistricted towns, we never see the pain- 
ful, anti-republican contrast of one school, in one section, kept 
all the year round, by a teacher who receives a hundred dollars 
a month, while, in another section of the same town, the school 
is kept on the minimum principle, both as to time and price, 



and, of course, yielding only a minimum amount of benefit,— 
to say nothing of probable and irremediable evils, that it may 
inflict In regard to supervision, also, if the school committee 
are responsible for the condition of all the schools, they are 
constrained to visit all alike, to care for all alike, and as far as 
possible, to aim, in all, at the production of equal results; be- 
cause any partiality or favoritism will be rebuked at the ballot- 
box. In undistricted towns, therefore, three grand conditions 
of a prosperous school, — viz., a good house, a good teacher, and 
vigilant superintendence, — are secured by motives which do not 
operate, or operate to a very limited extent, in districted towns. 
Under the non-districting system, it is obvious that each section 
of a town will demand at least an equal degree of accommoda- 
tion in the house, of talent in the teacher, and of attention in 
the committee; and, should any selfish feelings be indulged, It 
is some consolation to reflect that they, too, will be harnessed 
to the car of improvement. 

"I consider the law of 1789, authorizing towns to divide them- 
selves into districts, the most unfortunate law, on the subject 

« 
of common schools, ever enacted in the state. During the last 

few years, several towns have abolished their districts, and as- 
sumed the administration of their schools in the corporate ca- 
pacity; and I learn, from the report of the school committees, 
and from other sources, that many other towns are contemplat- 
ing the same reform." 

Speaking of Mr. Mann's opinion of the unfortunate law of 
1789, authorizing the division of towns into districts, Rev. Dr. 
Sears, Mr. Mann's successor as secretary of the Massachusetts 
board of education, observes, in his report of 1850, "The just- 
ness of the above observation is illustrated every day by the 
evils which are forcing themselves upon the public attention 
from every quarter." 

Hon. H. H. Barney, in his report of 1855, as commissioner of 
common schools of Ohio, gives the following synopsis of the 
able argument of Dr. Sears, in favor of the township system, 
and the evils incident to the old district plan: After explain- 
ing at great length the nature of these evils, he sums up the 
whole matter by saying that the schools ordinarily maintained 



9 

in the districts into which, they are divided are no longer cap- 
able of giving the education required by the character of the 
times; that they preclude the introduction of a system of proper 
gradation in the schools; that the classification of the pupils is 
necessarily imperfect, and the number of classes altogether too 
great for thorough instruction by a single teacher; the fact that 
the district schools without any of the advantages of grada- 
tion, once answered their purpose very well, does not prove 
that we need nothing better now; that the old system is much 
more expensive in proportion to what it accomplishes than the 
other; that by means of it hundreds of schools are kept in oper- 
ation, which would otherwise be abandoned, as they ought to 
be; that in 1849 there were in Massachusetts 25 schools, whose 
highest average attendance was only five pupils; 205, whose 
highest average attendance was only ten ; 546, in which it was 
only fifteen; 1,009, where it was only twenty; and 1,456, where 
it was only twenty-five; that most of these schools were of so 
low an order as not to deserve the name, and that the impres- 
sion which they made upon the agents of the board of education 
while visiting them was that the money of the districts, and the 
time of the teachers and pupils were little better than wasted; 
that while some schools thus gradually dwindled into compara- 
tive insignificance and worthlessness, others became too large 
for suitable instruction by one teacher; that another evil al- 
most invariably resulting from the division of the townships 
into independent school districts, was the unjust distinction 
which it occasioned in the character of the schools, and in the 
distribution of the school money; that when there was no re- 
sponsible township school committee authorized to act in the 
name of the township, there could not be that equality in the 
schools which the law contemplated; that the inhabitants of 
one district, being more intelligent and public spirited than 
those of another, would have better schoolhouses, more com- 
petent, zealous and devoted school directors, and consequently 
better teachers and better schools ; that the smaller and more 
retired districts, which stood in greatest need of good common 
schools, because entirely dependent on them, were more likely 
to languish for want of public spirit and good management 
than to be prosperous; that inasmuch as the theory of popular 



10 

education is founded upon the principle that the public security 
requires the education of all the citizens, and that it is both 
just and expedient to tax the property of the people for the edu- 
cation of all the children of the people, and inasmuch as the 
school tax is levied equally upon all parts of the township, and 
as the object contemplated, which alone justifies such taxation, 
is the education of the whole mass of the population, without 
distinction, nothing short of an equal provision for all should 
satisfy the public conscience. 

With such facts and arguments presented and enforced, 
through a series of years, by two of the most accomplished and 
experienced friends of popular education in this country, — 
Horace Mann and Dr. Sears — gentlemen who have carefully 
observed, thoroughly studied and minutely noted the practical 
workings of the various school systems of this country and of 
Europe, the people became aroused at last to the importance 
of the change which had been so ably advocated, and the utility 
of which had been so completely demonstrated. 

In a recent report of the secretary of the board of education 
of Massachusetts, the following important statement is found, 
viz.: 

"A very considerable number of the townships have dropped 
the former mode of dividing the schools according to districts, 
and have placed the whole matter of their organization and 
distribution in the hands of the school committee of the town- 
ship. This change has already been made in about sixty town- 
ships of the commonwealth, and the subject is now, more than 
ever before, engaging the attention of other townships, so that 
the year to come is likely to show greater results than any pre- 
ceding year. The perceptible improvement of the schools in 
those places which have made the change is an argument be* 
fore which nothing can stand, and which is now acting upon the 
minds of the people at large with silent but resistless power. 

"The clear intelligence, steadiness and sobriety with which 
the people are beginning to pursue their object, as contrasted 
with the adventurous and uncertain efforts in the same direc- 
tion in former years, is one of the many pleasing indications 
that the days of turmoil and confusion in settling great ques- 
tions of school policy are passing away, and a wise regard for 



11 

the interests of posterity is becoming more and more controll- 
ing in the management of this branch of our public interests. 
It is hardly too much to say that, under the guidance of such 
lofty sentiments, all the townships of the state will, within a 
short period, be found adopting that policy in the management 
of their public schools, which experience shows to be the best. 
"The gradual abandonment of the district system as here 
stated results in no small degree from its connection with an- 
other measure, which has been regarded by the people with 
great favor, namely, the gradation of the schools. The dis- 
tricts are known to stand directly in the way of this improve- 
ment, and are receiving judgment accordingly. It was not un- 
til somewhat recently that a subject so important, so funda- 
mental as that of establishing schools of different grades, for 
pupils of different ages and attainments, received much consid- 
eration from those who alone possessed the power to make the 
change. Distinguished men had written on tne subject, and 
those who had studied the philosophy of education were gen- 
erally agreed in respect to it. But it was known chiefly as a 
theory passing, in only a few instances, except in the cities, 
from the closet to the schoolroom. By degrees the results of 
these few experiments became known. Measures were taken 
to communicate them to the people, the majority of whom were 
still without any definite information on the subject. From 
this time a course of action commenced in the townships which 
were favorably situated for trying the experiment and has been 
followed up with increasing vigor ever since. 

"But what particularly distinguishes the present state of edu- 
cation amongst us from that of former times is the existence of 
so many free high schools. Until quite recently such schools 
were found only in a few large towns. The idea of a free edu- 
cation did not generally extend beyond that given in the ordi- 
nary district schools. All higher education was supposed to be 
a privilege which each individual should purchase at his own 
expense. But at length the great idea of providing by law for 
the education of the people in a higher grade of public schools 
prevailed. The results have been most happy. High schools 
have sprung up rapidly in all parts of the commonwealth; and 



12 

within the last six years the number has increased from 
scarcely more than a dozen to about eighty. 

"The effect of this change in the school system, of this higher 
order of schools, in developing the intellect of the common- 
wealth, in opening channels of free communication between all 
the more flourishing towns of the state, and the colleges or 
schools of science, is just beginning to be observed. They dis- 
cover the treasures of native intellect that lie hidden among 
the people; bringing those who are by nature destined to pub- 
lic service, to institutions suited to foster their talents; giving 
a new impulse to the colleges, not only by swelling the number 
of their students, but by raising the standard of excellence in 
them, and finally, giving to the public, with all the advantages 
of education, men who otherwise might have remained in ob- 
scurity, or have acted their part struggling with embarrass- 
ments and difficulties." 

Hon. G-eo. S . Boutwell, the present secretary of the board of 
education of Massachusetts, remarks in the Twentieth Annual 
Report: "In many districts the number of pupils is too small 
to constitute a good school. This evil was fully discussed by 
Dr. Sears, in the Sixteenth Annual Report of the Secretary 
of the Board of Education. The evil, however, continues, with- 
out much alteration for the better; nor is there great hope of 
improvement while the present system remains. A district, 
however small it may be, is anxious to preserve its existence, 
and especially unwilling to be united with, or merged in a 
larger one. As the district provides its own house, the town 
is comparatively without interest in the matter, and therefore 
is slow to exercise its power. Hence the district for genera- 
tions is allowed to continue a small school, comparatively val- 
ueless under the most favorable circumstances, in charge, prob- 
ably, of a cheap, and necessarily incompetent teacher, in a 
house entirely unfit for the custody, to say nothing of the edu- 
cation of children. ]S T ow transfer the support of the school- 
houses to the town, and at once a general interest takes the 
place of local custom or prejudice, and small schools are abol- 
ished as far as is consistent with the public convenience, and 
the erection of one suitable house is likely to be followed by a 



13 

successful, because just, demand for equal accommodations for 
all." 

A similar change from the old system to the new, is slowly 
progressing in Connecticut. Eeferring to an enactment au- 
thorizing and facilitating this change, the superintendent, in a 
recent report, remarks: "Among the objects proposed to be 
accomplished by this act are, to simplify the machinery of the 
system, by committing to the hands of one board of school of- 
ficers what is now divided between three; to equalize the ad- 
vantages of the schools, by abolishing the present district lines, 
and placing all the schools under one committee, thereby also 
facilitating the gradation of schools and the proper classifica- 
tion of scholars, and the establishment of schools of a higher 
grade in towns containing a sparse population, and substitut- 
ing a simpler and more efficient organization." 

Hon. Caleb Mills, when superintendent of public instruction 
of Indiana, declared in his report of 1855 that the township 
feature of the school law of that state was "one of the crown- 
ing excellences of the system." Hon. Henry C. Hickok, the su- 
perintendent of public instruction of Pennsylvania, remarked 
to me in conversation, "The crowning glory of the Pennsylvania 
school system, in addition to its county superintendency, is its 
new township plan of government, and the consequent avoid- 
ance of the ensmalling of districts." 

- As Indiana has faithfully tried both systems, and is a sister 
state of the great northwest, I shall freely cite the results of 
its township experience, as contrasted with the old district 
plan: 

"Under the old district system," says Hon. W. C. Larrabee, 
in his report as superintendent of public instruction in that 
state, in 1852, "heretofore in use in this state, and until lately 
in all the eastern states, serious inconveniencs, and sometimes 
insurmountable difficulties could but exist. I myself came 
near being wholly cheated out of an education by this most 
injudicious and iniquitous system. The township was mapped 
off into districts by geographical lines. The district boundar- 
ies could not be passed. A family must send only to the school 
to which they might be geographically assigned, though a 
swamp or a river be in the way, though unluckily they might 



14 

live on the very frontiers of Ike district, and there might be in 
another district a schoolhouse provokingly near them. 

"Under our present system these districts are utterly abol- 
ished. Each civil township forms a corporation for school 
purposes. The township trustees are authorized and required 
to establish, and conveniently locate in the township a suf- 
ficient number of schools for the education of all the children 
therein.' Each family may send to any school in the township 
most convenient or agreeable. Whenever any person can be 
more conveniently accommodated at the school of some adjoin- 
ing township, or even in an adjoining county, than in his own 
township or county, he is at liberty to make his own selection 
and attend where he pleases. 

"This repudiation of arbitrary district lines, and this liberty 
to the family of choosing a school according to its own conven- 
ience and pleasure, is one of the most admirable features of our 
system. It gives, wherever it has been put in practice, un- 
bounded satisfaction. It only needs, in order to become uni- 
versally popular, to be understood in its practical advantages. 
One of the committee who reported the law last winter, a gen- 
tleman whose services and experience in the cause of education 
render his opinions of great weight, thus writes to me of the 
operation of this principle in his own county: 'The people 
express much satisfaction at the provision of the new law, 
which enables them to make their own selection of schools un- 
restrained by geographical lines. A few days ago I met a 
farmer, whose name had by accident been omitted in our enu- 
meration. I requested him to give me the number of his chil- 
dren, which he said he would do, as it might be of some ad- 
vantage to us, although it was of no use to him. I asked him, 
why? He said the school in his own district was so remote, 
and the road so difficult, that he had altogether given up send- 
ing his children. I told him that districts no longer existed, 
that he could send his children, without charge, to any public 
school he might select. On this his countenance directly 
brightened up. 'Well,' said he, 'there is sense in that. I shall 
send my children tomorrow.' Another venerable man, nearly 
seventy years old, as he was paying his tax yesterday to the 
treasurer, said, T have been paying a heavy school tax for sev- 



15 

eral years and have derived no benefit therefrom.' I asked Mm, 
why? He answered, 'I reside in a remote part of the school 
district. It is utterly impracticable for me to send to our 
schoolhouse. There is a schoolhouse in an adjoining township 
close at hand, but I have no right to its privileges.' I told him 
that senseless obstacle had been removed under our new sys- 
tem. He could now send to school, if more convenient, in an 
adjoining township, or even in an adjoining county. 'Well/ 
said he, 'I shall hereafter derive some benefit from the school 
system.' Wherever this principle is understood by the people 
it is popular." 

"In such a territory as ours, in many parts nearly roadless, 
and intersected by bridgeless streams, and in some of the north- 
ern counties obstructed in communication by impassable 
swamps, such a system is the only one promising any s access. 
It is indeed strange that the people have so long submitted to 
the district system, so replete with inequalities, injustice and 
inconveniences and so deficient in redeeming qualities. So 
true it is, that we often remain, for a long time, unaware of the 
serious inconvenience and injury we suffer from imperfections 
and abuses to which we are accustomed. But when the remedy 
is discovered, and the corrective applied, we wonder how we 
could so long overlook so simple a remedy for so serious evils." 

"Indiana," says Larrabee, in his report of 1853, "was the first 
state to abolish the old district system. But not the last. 
Ohio has followed in her footsteps. Massachusetts is prepar- 
ing to follow, and in a few years the township system will be 
the rule, and the district system only the exception in more 
than half the states of the union. It is conceded on all hands 
that this system will, in the end, when fully developed, work 
out the most favorable results. It is the only system by which 
we can make any tolerable approach to equality in educational 
advantages for all parts of the state." 

"Unequal burdens and unequal privileges," says Hon. Caleb 
Mills, of Indiana, in his report as superintendent of public in- 
struction in January, 1857, "in the same township cease to vex 
and annoy. These sources of complaint and dissatisfaction will 
be dried up and these inseparable concomitants of the district 
feature will be numbered among the things that were and are 



16 

not. The superiority of the present over the former system, in 
the equity of its requisitions, is very striking and manifest. 
Under the former system districts in the same township, hav- 
ing an equal number of children, and consequently needing 
schoolhouses of similar size and accommodations, would be very 
unequally taxed to erect these structures. The property in 
one district would not be assessed for this purpose more than 
fifteen cents on the hundred dollars, while the wealth in the 
other must respond to the demand of not less than three times 
that amount. Is that right, equitable, and in accordance with 
the principle that demands equality of assessment for general 
interests and common benefits, in the same corporation? 
Should such a gross inequality of burdens be tolerated any 
longer? Should neighbors living in daily intercourse with each 
other be subject to such unrighteous levies? The present sys- 
tem protects us against all such inequitable assessments, and 
provides that each district shall have, at the common expense 
of the township, a comfortable, commodious and tasteful house, 
whose associations shall be pleasant and instructive. Such is 
the contrast, in reference to equality of burdens, presented by 
the past and present educational codes of Indiana. 

" An inequality of privilege, equally gross and manifest, 
existed under the old district system, which disappears by the 
operation of the township principle. Districts of equal geo- 
graphiccal area in the same corporation will often be exceed- 
ingly diverse in comparative population at different periods of 
their history. One may have twenty-five, another fifty, a third 
seventy-five, and a fourth one hundred pupils. On the district 
system the educational funds were necessarily distributed on 
the per capita basis. These funds, converted into tui- 
tion, would be represented by one, two, three or four 
months' instruction. Should friends, perhaps even 
brothers, living in the adjacent angles of the aforesaid 
districts, be subject to such an inequitable participation 
of a common patrimony? Should the children of these 
families be so equally cared for by her who claims the name 
and assumes to be their educational foster-mother? Such 
palpable injustice was the inevitable result, the legitimate 
sequence of the district system. Weak districts seemed only 



17 

the weaker by contrast with the adjacent strong ones. "What 
could be more annoying to those thus situated in the same 
township, citizens of the minature republic, where we fiirst 
begin to govern ourselves politically, where we first 
awakened those official aspirations which extend, perhaps, 
through a series of coveted elevations till they culminate in the 
presidency. It has existed, still exists, is deplored and 
lamented elsewhere. Our own experience attests the reality 
of the evil. Various prescriptions have been suggested for 
the disease, termed weak districts, by distinguished physicians, 
but the honor of discovering an effectual remedy for this wasting 
malady belongs to the Indiana faculty, who have nobly made it 
patent to the world. It is found in the 27th section of our revised 
school law, and reads thus: The schools in each township 
shall be taught an equal length of time, without regard to the 
diversity in the number of pupils in the several schools. 
It just meets the exigencies of the case, and will prove an 
effectual and permanent correction of the aforesaid evil. It 
is preeminently wise, just and honorable, for it secures an 
equitable participation of the educational provisions furnished 
by the state, as completely as human wisdom and sagacity 
could devise. It involves no injustice in the operation, for the 
commonwealth, pledged by her fundamental law to educate 
all her youth, as a wise and judicious parent, provides for the 
training of the twenty-five of one district, and the seventy-five 
of another, during an equal period of time. If she can give 
them only six months tuition annually, none, enjoying that 
amount of instruction, are wronged, because others, numerically 
less, receive a similar favor. It is not money that the state 
proposes to give her youths. It is something better, more 
enduring, and pertaining to both worlds, mental and moral cult 
ure. This she designs to distribute equally, and, by the afore- 
said provision, effects as nearly as human ingenuity will 
admit." 

Hon. H. H. Barney, in his report as commissioner of the 
common schools of Ohio, in 1855, remarks of the school law 
of that state of 1853, that it " constitutes each and every 
organized township in the state but one school district for 
all purposes connected with the general interests of education 



18 

in the township, and confides its management and control 
to a board of education. The law also contains provisions for 
introducing a system of graded schools in every city, town, 
incorporated village and township in the state. In accordance 
with the same principles, and for the purpose of accomplishing 
the same benificent object, the legisature of Indiana, in 1852, 
enacted a school law abolishing all the school districts, and 
declaring each civil township in the several counties a town- 
ship, for school purposes, and the trustees for such township, 
trustees for school purposes, and that the board of trustees 
shall take charge of the educational affairs of the township, 
employ teachers, establish and conveniently locate a sufficient 
number of schools for the education of the children therein, 
and t^at they may also establish graded schools, or such 
modifications of them as may be practicable. 

"Whatever diversity of opinion may exist among education- 
ists, as to the best manner of constituting township boards of 
education, there can be but one opinion as to the propriety of 
having a township school organization. Facts, experiments, 
the observations and opinions of those competent to judge, 
have fully settled the matter. It is not, however, so clearly 
determined whether the school committees or boards of educa- 
tion of townhips should consist of three or six persons; one- 
third to be elected and the other third to go out of office annu- 
ally; or whether they should be elected by the townships at 
large, or by the subdistricts. ~Nor is the principle fully settled, 
whether a township should be divided, for certain specific pur- 
poses, into subdistricts or not. But it is fully settled that 
if a township is thus divided, the lines of the subdistricts 
should not in the least interfere with the proper classification, 
gradation and supervision of its schools. 

"It is thought by some that to provide the same amount of 
means and facilities for educating those who reside in the 
poorer and less populous portions of a township, as for those in 
the wealthier and more thickly settled portions, would deprive 
the latter of their rights; just as if the taxes for the support 
of schools were levied upon subdistricts, and not upon the 
state and townships. 
"If all the property of the state and of the townships is 



19 

taxed alike for the purpose of educating the youth of the 
state, there is no principle plainer than that all should share 
equally, so far as practicable, in the benefits of the fund thus 
raised, whether they reside in sparse or populous neighbor- 
hoods." 

I trust I have adduced an array of facts, experiences, and 
authorities that are well calculated to carry great weight with 
them. Suppose, then, the county superintendency, and county 
examining board, should be adopted, and the district system 
abolished, what would be the necessary township school offi- 
cers? A town superintendent, a town school treasurer, and a 
town school clerk, would be sufficient, and would form the 
town board of education; at the first election, the clerk to be 
chosen for one year, the treasurer for two and the superintend- 
ent for three years, and thereafter each officer for three years, 
thus giving experience and stability to the board. They should 
have the entire control of the schoolhouses, their sites, erec- 
tion, repairs, supply of fuel, etc.; should personally attend the 
examinations of the county examining board in their town, 
and acquaint themselves with the scholastic fitness and qualifi- 
cations of the several teachers who should obtain certificates, 
so as to judge their respective adaptations to the several 
schools for which they would be employed, and to which 
assigned; and the town board should alone employ the teachers 
for all the schools of the town. They should also serve as 
overseers or inspectors of the schools, and unite with the 
county superintendent in his visitations of the schools of the 
town ; and have the control of the township school library. 
They should make the annual report of the statistics and con- 
dition of the schools of the town to the county superintendent, 
and furnish any educational information desired of them by 
either the state or county superintendent. Appeals from their 
action should be the privilege of any person or persons 
aggrieved, to the county superintendent, if made within a 
reasonable time; and also from the action or decision of the 
county superintendent to the state superintendent. 

Such a system of township school government, with the 



20 

abrogation of the district system, would produce, among oth- 
ers, the following beneficial results, viz. : 

1. The provision of the constitution of our state, which 
requires " the establishment of district schools as nearly uni- 
form as practicable," would, by constituting the township as 
the district, be more fairly carried out; and hence the state 
school fund income would be much more equally distributed 
than it now is. 

2. Taxation for school purposes would be better equalized, 
for, under the present district system, the people of some dis- 
tricts, owing to the smallness of both their numbers and tax- 
able property, pay two or three times as much as their neigh- 
boring wealthier districts, and get no more — often much less 
in quantity and value, for it; and in joint districts, the several 
parts composing them, are, from the necessity of the case, 
very unequally taxed. 

3. All the primary schools of the town would be held the 
same length of time, thus producing an equality of school priv- 
ileges which does not, and cannot, exist under the old district 
plan; for instance are not wanting in our state, where the poor 
and weak district, with great difficulty, and heavy taxation, 
manages to maintain three months' school, and that kept by 
a cheap and perhaps almost worthless teacher; while the 
adjoining wealthy district, with comparatively light taxation, 
easily sustains a ten months' school, with an able and success- 
ful teacher. This is exceedingly unequal, and bears heavily 
and unjustly on the poor, and fails to carry out the heavenly 
injunction, "Bear ye one another's burdens." 

4. By the township plan there would be a juster distrib- 
tion and equalization of teachers, suitable to the several local- 
ities ; and less of the favoritism practised, as under the present 
district system, in employing relatives to teach the schools — for 
in a town board of only three members, there would be less 
opportunity of practising it than by the present half a dozen 
to a dozen district boards in the town. 

5. There would be more uniformity and adaptation in school- 
houses; for they would be built economically, by the lowest 



21 

and best bidder, and not, as is now too often the case, by one 
or more members of the district board, on pretty much his or 
their own terms; and such localities as now neglect to provide 
good, comfortable schoolhouses, would have them provided for 
them, and the children of such stingy, miserly souls would no 
longer suffer for a suitable place in which to acquire an educa- 
tion, which would be worth vastly more to them than all the 
wealth, without it, which their ignorant and niggardly parents 
could ever heap together. 

6. It would not only be a far better, but a far cheaper sys- 
tem to maintain, lopping off the weak, inefficient and worthless 
schools, and dividing the larger and unwieldy ones; lessening 
the number of officers, as the town board of three officers would 
perform all the necessary school duties of the town, and do 
it cheaper and better than the half a dozen or more local boards 
of at least sis times as many officers; and instead of selecting 
eighteen or more persons in a township, as is now the case, 
for these local boards, the people would select three of the 
very best and most efficient for the town board. Here would 
be a great saving of expense, and the objects sought more 
equally obtained, better in quality, and far more useful to the 
people. 

7. By abrogating the district and joint district system, we 
should be doing away at once with one of the most fruitful 
sources of troubles, wranglings, contentions, and petty jeal- 
ousies, incident to the district system ; and would, at the same 
time, put an end to the greatest bane of the system, the con- 
stant ensmalling of districts, to gratify whims and caprices, 
and oftentimes to adjust an angry controversy, thus steadily 
lessening the ability of such dismembered districts to either 
employ a good teacher or maintain a school even the legal 
requirement of three months. 

8. It would give to the people all over the state the perfect 
freedom, while taxed in their own town, to send their children 
to any public school, without regard to district, township, or 
county lines — thus, in the enlightened spirit of progressive 
legislation, doing away with an oppressive restriction already 
too long and too patiently borne by the people, which has 



22 

only been productive of inconvenience, injustice and inequality, 
and deprived many a worthy tax-paying family of invaluable 
school privileges. 

9. And lastly, but not least in importance, while the pri- 
mary schools generally cannot well be graded, and but little 
effected in the way of properly classifying the pupils ; yet, under 
the township system, each town containing a specific number 
of inhabitants, or a certain amount of taxable property, or both, 
could have its central graded high school, free to all of a cer- 
tain age, say between ten or twelve and twenty years of age 
— this central school to be kept in session at least ten months 
in each year. With such a graded school in each town, for the 
more advanced youth, the accruing benefits would be of so 
decided and general a character, that the plan could not but 
meet with universal favor. 



23 



TOWNSHIP DISTRICT SYSTEM. 

(From the Annual Eeport of J. L. Pickard, for the year 1863.) 
For several years in succession the State Teachers' Associa- 
tion has discussed the subject of the Township District System 
of Schools. The wishes of the association are expressed in the 
report and resolutions given above. 

The subjoined letter is presented as a petition to the legis- 
lature made through me by the committee of the association. 

Horicon, December 12, 1863. 
Hon. J. L. Pickard, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Wis. 

The committee of the State Teachers' Association, on the 
"Bevision of the School law," desire to call your attention 
to the following facts in regard to the introduction of the 
township system of common schools into our state. 

You will allow us to state, (as of course you are aware,) 
that the state superintendents, yourself included, both in their 
public addresses, and reports, for the last eight years, unhes- 
itatingly recommended the system. The State Teachers' Asso- 
ciation, at most of its sessions for the last seven years, has 
unanimously adopted resolutions to the same effect. At 
Teachers' Institutes, and other educational gatherings, the sub- 
ject has continually been discussed, and we think in every 
case with a like result. 

Wherever the system has been adopted in the United States 
and Canadas we think that in no important case has it been 
rejected; but, on the contrary, is looked upon by educational 
classes as a most important and necessary step in educational 
advancement. We think that this accumulated evidence ought 
to inspire us with confidence to move forward; we think that 
the times are propitious, and especially that the association 
demands of us action. There are great improvements being 
made in the education of teacher, in the government, class- 
ification, gradation, and instruction of our schools, and in 
their visitation and examination, that seem necessarily to 
await and demand this improvement in our general school 
system. 

As you, sir, by virtue of your office, and general influence, 



24 

necessarily occupy the most convenient approach to the legisla- 
ture, and as we know your interest in the matter, we wish to 
act through you, and hereby cheerfully offer any aid in our 
power to further the cause. 

Yours sincerely, 
(Signed) A. PICKETT, 

J. B. PEATT, 
CHAS. H. ALLEN, 
Committee of Association. 

I take pleasure in presenting this matter to the candid con- 
sideration of your honorable body, and in support of its claims 
offer the following article prepared by my assistant, Mr A. J. 
Craig, who has given the matter much careful study, and most 
heartily indorse the argument he uses in favor of the system. 

That the county superintendency is a step in advance, a 
great improvement upon the town superintendent system, is 
generally acknowledged by those best acquainted with the 
operation of both agencies; but many sincere friends of popular 
education regret the loss of the local officer, who when capable 
and faithful, effected so much in a direction in which the 
county superintendent is able to do but little — the visitation 
and supervision of schools; and, so much is this loss felt that, 
in certain localities, isome are advocating a return of the former 
order of things, even at the sacrifice of the county superin- 
tendency. Believing that such a step would be a retrograde 
one, and that it is entirely' unnecessary, I shall proceed to indi- 
cate what I conceive to be a better method of securing efficient 
local supervision of schools, without sacrificing the fruit of 
years of earnest effort, the county superintendency. We need 
not only efficient supervision, but a complete and harmonious 
system to supervise. 

As our schools are organized at present, no system of super- 
vision can be really effective in securing unity of plan, and sys- 
tematic development of that plan in our educational work. 
Each school district is a separate, independent republic, 
accountable to no higher authority, and dependent upon none, 
except in the matter of the examination of teachers, and the 
annual receipt and expenditure of a very small amount of 



25 

money. We call the aggregation of agencies through which 
we educate our children a school system, when, in point of 
fact, there is no vital legal connection between these separate 
agencies, and there is not a school established by law within 
the state. Not only is the kind of school, and the time it shall 
continue, dependent upon the vote of a majority of the res- 
idents of the district, but one more than half of the legal voters, 
a bare majority, can prevent the establishment of a school at 
all. Again, while in one district, in consequence of the intelli- 
gence and wealth of the people, a good, graded school may be 
maintained ten months each year, in an adjoining district, on 
account of the absence of intelligence, and the poverty of the 
people, a miserable apology for a school, in which only the sim- 
plest rudiments of an English education are taught, is main- 
tained for three or four months only. 

Now no system of supervision, be it ever so good, can remedy 
the above mentioned evils, and others inherent in our system. 
What we need is, the abolishment of the separate district sys- 
tem, and the establishment of the township system of school 
organization and government. 

In this system each town constitutes a district, and all mat- 
ters pertaining to the schools are under the direction of a 
board elected by the various subdistricts. The secretary of 
this board takes the place of the old town superintendent, 
visits and supervises the schools, grades them, assists the 
teachers in classifying the pupils, etc.; in a word, is the effi- 
cient agent of the town board, and the necessary connecting 
link between the county superintendent and the schools. 
Taxes for the support of schools would, under this system, be 
levied upon the town as a whole; and every individual would 
pay an equal share of such taxes in proportion to the amount 
of property owned by him. 

Further details of the system will be given in connection 
with what follows. The advantages of this system are many 
and evident. 

1. As each town forms a school district, and each parent 
would be permitted to send his children to the school which 
best accommodated them, all the expense, trouble and ill feel- 



26 

ing, consequent upon the frequent changes in the boundaries 
of districts, would he entirely avoided. 

2. Schoolhouses would he built when and where they were 
needed. Many districts are now compelled to suffer, year after 
year, all the inconvenience and loss occasioned by the use of 
a small, badly constructed, ill-arranged house, because of diffi- 
culties concerning the site, or the indisposition of the voters 
to furnish the means to erect a new building. Under the town- 
ship system these difficulties would be avoided, as the board, 
composed of delegates from all parts of the town, would not 
be likely to be influenced by local disputes in reference to the 
site for a house, but would locate it at such a point as would 
best accommodate those for whom it was selected; and as the 
funds for building the house would be drawn from the whole 
town, the tax upon each individual would be so small as not to 
be in the least burdensome, and there would be no necessty 
for delay. 

3. Schools can be graded more easily under the township 
than under the separate district system. The districts, as now 
organized, as a general rule, are too feeble in numbers and 
wealth to maintain more than one department; and the law of 
1858, permitting districts to unite for high school purposes 
has been entirely inoperative, no action having been taken 16y 
any district in accordance with its provisions. The summer 
schools, in the country especially, are primary schools in most 
respects, while the winter schools embrace all grades of pupils 
from the primary to the grammar or high school. This con- 
dition of things necessitates the employment of better educated, 
more experienced teachers during the winter term, at a cost 
for their services of about double the amount paid for the same 
length of time in the summer; while there is not, on an average, 
more than a dozen children in each district whose capacity, 
advancement, or range of studies demands a better or more 
costly teacher than the one employed during the summer: and 
thus the education of these few costs the district the difference 
between the wages paid in summer and winter, amounting, 
for a four months' school, to from thirty to sixty dollars. 
Now if there were, within the reach of the larger class of pupils 
in three or four districts, a school of a higher grade, to which 



27 

they could all have access, the winter school in their respective 
districts could be continued as a primary or intermediate 
school, under the charge of the same teacher employed in the 
summer; and one higher grade teacher would suffice for several 
districts. By this arrangement all the pupils in a town would 
be divided into two grades, at a cost for tuition not greater 
than now incurred; and the total additional expense would be 
measured by the cost of erecting a sufficient number of build- 
ings to accommodate the higher grade of pupils. In many 
instances, by a proper arrangement of the terms of schools, the 
houses already erected would serve for both grades of pupils. 
In some district, in which the house is so situated as to be 
easy of access to the larger scholars in several surrounding 
districts, let there be a term of school commencing so soon as 
the ground is settled and the weather pleasant in the spring, 
and continuing to the first of July; and a fall term commencing 
about the middle of August and continuing till the middle of 
November, thus affording the primary pupils six months or 
more of uninterrupted school during the most pleasant season 
of the year, which would be far more beneficial to them, 
intellectually and physically, than the usual summer 
and winter terms, with the extremes of warm and 
cold weather, producing sickness, tardiness and 
irregularity of attendance, and thus wasting a good share of 
the money expended. The winter term could then be devoted 
entirely to the grammar or higher grade scholars, who, under 
a competent, instructor, whose whole time was given to them 
and their studies, would make as much progress in one term as 
they now do, in the mixed schools, in two or more. Again, 
whenever a new schoolhouse is to be built, its location, size, and 
internal arrangements can all be adapted to the new order of 
things, so that, in process of time, without any violent changes, 
or any appreciable increase of expense, the facilities for main- 
taining graded schools can be established throughout the state. 
4. Better supervision of the schools. The county superintend- 
ent, though exercising a general supervision over all the schools 
in his county is entirely unable to give, to each schoool, that 
personal attention necessary to obtain a complete knowledge 



28 

of its. condition and wants ; and some of the most active and 
efficient superintendents nave felt the need of a local officer, 
to cooperate with and aid them in effecting improvements in 
the arrangement and management of the schools. As before 
stated, the secretary of the town board will be the proper per- 
son to have the immediate supervision of the schools, and will 
have power, under the direction of the board, to grade and 
arrange them, suggest and enforce rules for their management 
and governmnt, and advise with and assist teachers in- all 
cases in which advice and assistance are needed. He should 
be appointed by the board, and he may be one of their mem- 
bers, or not, so that the best person to fill the place is selected. 

We should thus secure all the advantages of the town, super- 
intendent system without losing any of the benefits resulting 
from the establishment of the county superintendency. 

5. Economy of administration. All the expenses now 
incurred in organizing new districts, and in changing the 
boundaries of old ones, would be saved. Each child being per- 
mitted to attend school which best accommodated him, and 
the amount of tax which each person would pay being the same, 
no matter in what sub-district he resided, there would be no 
reason for altering districts; consequently very few changes 
would be made, and those few would be easily effected, and 
attended with little or no expense. Again, the liability to a 
loss of moneys is in proportion to the number of hands through 
which' they pass, and it is no wonder that, with nearly five 
thousand disbursing officers, there is a good deal of waste 
of district funds every year. 

Under the township system the financial affairs of all the 
schools in a town being managed by the same board, one treas- 
urer would be sufficient, and, in order not to multiply officers, 
the town treasurer, who now collects and receives all the school 
moneys belonging to his town, might be the treasurer of the 
board, and upon the order of its secretary, countersigned by 
the president, could pay out such moneys, when needed. Thus 
the number of disbursing officers would be reduced from nearly 
five thousand, to less than eight hundred, and besides the dim- 
inished liability to loss on account of the decrease in the num- 
ber of disbursing officers, the expense incurred in executing 



29 

nearly two thousand treasurers' bonds each year would be 
saved. 

6. Better accommodation of the people. Under the present 
system it is necessary to organize districts in such a form as 
to secure a certain amount of taxable property in order to sup- 
port a school, and thus it often happens that a person resides 
in one district while the greater part of his property is situated 
in another; and many live in close proximity to houses to which 
they would be glad to send their children, but, because they 
live in a different district, they are obliged to send them to 
schools kept in houses remote from them, and dfficult of 
access. Again, it often happens that a populous district, 
possesses a small, badly arranged house, while an adjoining 
district, with few scholars, has a large and convenient one; 
yet the children of the populous district cannot attend the 
school in the other one without the payment of a tuition fee, 
or a change in the boundaries of their district, involving time, 
expense, and often an appeal to the state superintendent. 
Under the township system this would all be changed, as it 
would be for the interest of every person to have the number 
of pupils in each school proportioned to the size of the house, 
and its power to accommodate them. 

There would also be an equality of privileges in the differ- 
ent districts, as, the schools being supported by a general tax, 
justice would require that they be maintained an equal length 
of time throughout the town, and we should not see, as we 
now do, so great a disparity in school privileges in adjoining 
districts. I '■!' | N 

Free schools are founded upon the principle that it is the 
duty of the state to see that the children within its limits are 
educated. To this end, a generous public fund is provided, and 
the people are yearly taxed to support the system; yet the 
kind and amount of instruction given to children Of different 
districts depend entirely upon influences which the law does 
not seek to guide or control. Now common sense and justice 
demand, that wherever children enough to organize a school 
are found, one should be established, with all the means and 
appliances necessary to secure the result desired, the proper 
education of the children attending it. 



30 

7. Employment of teachers. It being the special duty of 
the secretary of the town board to visit the schools, become 
acquainted with their condition and wants, the capacity, tact 
and success of the different teachers, he would be better qual- 
ified to select the person suited to each school than nine-tenths 
of the district clerks under the present system possibly can 
be; thus better teachers would be employed— that is, teachers 
better adapted to their positions — and they would not be 
changed each term, as they now are, but would remain in one 
school so long as they were successful in their work. 

Incompetent and unsuccessful teachers would be sifted out, 
the standard of attainments of all those employed would be 
gradually and surely raised, and consequent progress of the 
schools would be certain and uninterrupted. 

The new system of examination by the county superintend- 
ent has done much to elevate the standard of attainments, 
and weed out unsuccessful teachers, but, inasmuch as an exam- 
ination in regard to scholarship is not always a true test of 
the qualifications of an applicant, and as it is not possible for 
the county superintendent to give that personal attention to 
each school necessary to enable him to judge correctly in 
regard to the skill and faithfulness of the teacher, many per- 
sons are still employed who have no real fitness for their posi- 
tion, and who are retained through favoritism or indifference 
on the part of those by whom they are engaged. Such persons 
would be quietly dropped from the list of teachers, and would 
engage in other pursuits, or, by the use of proper means, become 
fitted for the responsible positions of instructors of youth. 

I have thus presented some of the main points in which it 
is believed that the township system is superior to the present 
district system, and it only remains to notice some of the 
objections urged to it by those who object to change, or who 
are satisfied with the system as it is. 

The first objection is to the raising of taxes for the support 
of schools by the town at large. Looking at the matter from 
a personal standpoint, many think a general tax would be 
unjust to different localities, for the reason that the children 
of school age are not proportioned to the valuation of property, 
and thus a wealthy district, with few children, would pay 



31 

for the education of children residing in other districts. This 
objection is the same one so often urged against free schools 
by the childless capitalist, the wealthy tax-payer whose chil- 
dren were already educated, " I ought not to pay for educating 
my neighbor's children." As before stated, free schools are 
established on the assumption that " the property of the state 
shall educate the children of the state," and consistency 
requires that the details of the system shall be so arranged 
as to carry out this fundamental principle. "What justice is 
there in requiring that a specified portion of territory shall fur- 
nish the means to educate the children residing therein, so 
long as you withhold from its tax-payers the power to decide 
who shall inhabit that territory? 

The fact is, that the fairest method of maintaining the 
schools would be by a tax upon the whole state, and the larger 
the district embraced in one organization, the more just and 
equal will be the taxation. 

The moneys apportioned yearly by the state superintendent, 
and those levied upon the towns by the county board of super- 
visors, are distributed to each district in proportion to the 
number of children between the ages of four and twenty resid- 
ing therein; and as the latter moneys are raised by a tax upon 
each town as a whole, and not by separate districts, the plan 
advocated is, in fact, in operation already, and only needs to 
be extended to the levy and collecttion of all the funds needed 
to support the schools. 

In the second place, many will object to the raising of funds 
by the whole town, to build a schoolhouse in a particular dis- 
trict, who would be willing that the schools should be sup- 
ported by a general tax, after the houses are built. This 
objection is removed by considering the town as a single dis- 
trict, which needs several houses to accommodate its pupils. 
It is true, that, for convenience sake, the town is divided into 
sub-districts, yet, for general purposes it is a unit, and should 
be managed accordingly. Each town is divided into road dis- 
tricts, yet when a new highway is to be laid out, the whole 
town is called upon to pay the expense incurred for right of 
way, etc., though but few of its tax-payers are personally ben- 
efited; and, when a bridge is to be built, no one thinks of ask- 



32 



ing the citizens residing in the road district in which the bridge 
is needed, to furnish the funds to pay for erecting it; and it 
cannot be that the education of the children in Wisconsin, is 
a matter of less interest to the people than the laying out of 
highways, and the erection of bridges. Returns made to the 
state superintendent show that, on an average, in the larger 
counties, not more than four schoolhouses are built in each 
year; and this would give to each town but one to build every 
three years, and this burden, being borne by all the taxpayers, 
would be so light, as scarcely to be felt. All the children 
would thus be provided with school privileges, and the pro- 
tracted effort and struggle now necessary in most districts, 
in order to secure the erection of a sehoolhouse would be 
avoided. 

In order to avoid all seeming injustice, it might be provided 
that those districts which had, within a certain limited time, 
erected good and substantial houses, should be exempted from 
the payment of the taxes raised for building houses, for a 
number of years after the adoption of the township system. 

Ah other inequalities and seeming irregularities can be as 
well provided for, and it is confidently believed, that a law can 
be framed, preserving for our school system all its prominent 
vital and valuable features, and engrafting thereon such addi- 
tional ones as will give it harmony and completeness, make it 
a better exponent of our educational standing, more worthy 
of affection and generous support, and insure the successful 
accomplishment of its great design, the education and eleva- 
tion of the whole people. 



33 



TOWN ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS. 

(From the Annual Report of State Superintendent John G-. 
McMynn — For year ending August 31, 1864.) 

That the present independent local district system 
is not satisfactory to those most interested in a suc- 
cessful administration of our educational affairs is so 
true as to be generally admitted. Were it not true 
that the success of any system depends more upon 
the intelligence and energy of its agents than upon the 
ress under our present school organization. Still, it is not wise 
to argue that, because a system that is theoretically bad may 
be so wisely administered as to be productive of good, it there- 
fore is unwise to change it for a better. 

The defects of our present school district system are radical, 
and, without a change, irremediable. The experience of the 
American people in the management of public affairs has dem- 
onstrated the town to be the true unit. To a certain extent 
this unit is recognized in our system. Town boards of super- 
visors have power to divide their respective towns into schools 
districts, in such manner as they may deem proper. They may 
alter boundaries of districts; annex a part of one to another, 
unite several into one, or divide one into , several. Their 
authority is limited only by the right of appeal to the depart- 
ment of public instruction. They divide funds and property 
in case districts are annulled; and thus, in several respects, 
we have the town district system in operation in our state. 

Instead, however, of carrying out this principle, and provid- 
ing a town school board to manage the affairs, we have cre- 
ated from three to ten other boards in each of the towns, to 
which the management of the schools is entrusted. Each of these 
district boards has power: 

1. To establish and keep in operation, for at least five 

months during the year, such schools as may be required to 

accommodate children over four and under twenty years of 

age, in their district. 
3 



34 

2. Wlien authorized by a vote of the district, to purchase 
or lease schoolhouse sites, to purchase or build schoolhouses, 
and to keep them in repair. 

3. To expend the money belonging to the district and to 
keep an account of receipts and disbursements. 

4. To adopt and enforce all needful rules and regulations for 
the government and management of their school. 

5. To employ teachers and fix the amount of their compen- 
sation. 

6. To adopt text-books, designate the course of study and 
to visit and examine the school. 

7. To provide fuel, furniture, apparatus and whatever is 
necessary to the good of the school. 

These and other duties imposed upon district boards by law, 
show that they are charged with the most important interests 
of the people. Their duties are difficult, demanding for their 
proper discharge, high character, general intelligence, broad 
views, solid judgment, public spirit, integrity and refinement. 
The first thing that strikes the mind in examining our present 
system in the light of these facts, is the difficulty of finding 
men to act as school officers who possess the necessary qual- 
ifications. Under existing arrangements this is practically 
impossible. The present system requires too many officers. 
If we assume five as the average number of districts in each 
town of the state, we have, counting the town supervisors and 
the town clerk, nineteen school officers for each town or more 
than fifteen thousand in all. We have, then, one school officer 
for every twenty-five children over four and under twenty years 
of age. It would seem that such a reduplication of offices is 
entirely needless. It certainly seems to be in direct conflict 
with the usual methods of doing business. It will not stand 
the test of common sense. Nineteen officers to manage any 
other branch of public business for a town would be declared 
to be at least three times as many as necessary. Every man 
knows that one third the number would manage the educa- 
tional affairs of a town three times as well. 

Hon. Newton Bateman, superintendent of public instruction 



35 

of Illinois, in his sixth, biennial report, speaking of the high, 
qualifications needed in school officers, says: 

" Are nineteen such men to be obtained for these positions 
in every township of Illinois? It is idle to think of it. If 
there are five the state is rich indeed. I do not know how 
many there are ; but this we know, that in every township, as 
in every community, there is among the citizens a graduated 
scale of competency and excellence, descending from the best 
down to the worst; and that, beginning at the top, the fewer we 
take for our committee, or board, the better will be its average 
quality. A township that cannot furnish nineteen men fit 
for school officers, might furnish five. Or if the five, even, 
are not what they should be, it is still self-evident that their 
average fitness will be greater than when diluted by the acces- 
sion of fourteen more, each and all of whom are inferior to 
any one of the five. 

" The pernicious consequences incident to the defect of our 
local system may all be epitomized by the statement that it 
necessitates the elevation to the important offices of trustees 
and directors, of many indifferent and incompetent men; of 
men who either care little for common schools, or who have 
not the knowledge or ability to do much for them. It clogs, 
encumbers, and deadens the system, dragging in its train the 
evils of misjudgment, mismanagement, inefficiency and demor- 
alization. And there is no remedy, without a radical change 
of plan." 

But our present system requires not only a needless num- 
ber of officers, but it also requires a corresponding number 
of public meetings and elections. These involve time and 
expenses of various kinds that may in part be estimated, but, 
they give rise to difficulties, that, in hundreds of instances, 
completely cripple the public schools, and the loss arising 
from which cannot be told. 

The able report from which I have just quoted, presents 
this point with such force, and it so well describes the expe- 
rience of this department, that I beg to call attention to the 
following extract: 

"The effect of this state of things hardly needs to be 
described. In the first place it makes an unreasonable demand 
upon the time of the people, to attend so many elections and 
meetings for voting purposes. A great majority of the voters 



36 

are farmers and mechanics, and persons engaged in other 
industrial pursuits, who can ill afford to leave their work so 
many days every year, in addition to the time spent at the 
numerous general elections, state, county and town. They 
feel it vexatious and harassing to have to quit their private 
business and pursuits so often for such purposes. It has a 
tendency to make them sour and unfriendly towards the whole 
system, to be dragged so frequently to the polls, and to be 
compelled to mingle in scenes for which most of them have 
no relish. 

" It must be noted, too, that the time necessarily spent in 
attending the meetings and voting, is often but a small part 
of that lost in connection with these frequent elections. In 
proportion to the increase of such local voting conventions, 
is the number and acrimony of neighborhood disputes and 
quarrels. Parties are formed, and rivalries and jealousies are 
engendered, often as bitter and virulent as those which rage 
on wider fields of action, and in more important contests. 
Indeed, it often seems to me that the spirit of feud and faction 
is hottest and most implacable,in proportion to the fewness of 
belligerents, and the nothingness of the matter in dispute. 
Certainly, I never wish to deal with contestants more rancor- 
ous, in contests more trivial, than have arisen out of differences 
of opinion among the inhabitants of school districts. But the 
point is, that the consideration necessary to form a right judg- 
ment concerning the many questions to be voted on, and espe- 
cially the numerous conferences, excited disputations and per- 
tinacious efforts put forth to carry a pet measure or defeat an 
opponent, consume far more time than that actually spent in 
voting ; so that the objection to so many elections on the score 
of the time required and involved, is really one of no small im- 
portance. 

"It follows, in the second place that many of these elec- 
tions are attended by a mere handful of persons; that others 
go by default— and that in a still greater number, the business 
is done in a very careless and hasty manner. It is rare indeed 
that one-half of the qualified voters of a school district are pres- 
ent at the elections; not seldom there are barely enough to or- 
ganize ; while in many instances, every year, and from year to 
year, the day of election comes and goes, unnoticed and unre- 
garded. 

"But the most serious evils resulting 'from so many petty 
elections, so scantily attended and hurriedly conducted, are the 
ill-advised measures adopted; the incompetent men elected; and 
the endless wranglings and controversies growing out of the 
irregular and illegal manner in which the elections are man- 



37 

aged and the returns made. Summoned from their industrial 
pursuits upon what many of them consider very trivial busi- 
ness, the inhabitants hurry to the place of meeting, in no amia- 
ble mood, and hurry through the work in hand, in a mechanical 
and indifferent sort of way, intent only upon hurrying back 
home again as fast as possible. Of course, the worst things 
are liable to be done, and the best things to be left undone. 
The most unfortunate sites are liable to be selected for school- 
houses, the most unsuitable building plans to be adopted, and 
wrong action to be taken in respect to taxation, extension of 
schools, and other questions of vital moment to the educational 
prosperity of the district. Or, if the meeting is for the election 
of officers, the same causes operate to endanger the defeat of 
the best men in the district. Indifference, or the pressure of 
business, keeps away those who would favor good teachers, 
good schools and liberal educational endowments ; while those, 
if any, who are opposed to each and all of these things, muster 
at the polls in full force. Once in office, down goes a school 
policy which it may have taken years to build up, and which 
it will require years more to re-establish. 

"Then, too, the proceedings are seldom conducted in all re- 
spects according to law. This occurs not only on account of 
indifference or haste, but quite as much from our complex 
statutory provisions in regard to elections, a proper knowledge 
of which cannot reasonably be expected of the majority of 
those who are compelled to act as officers of school district 
elections. The irregularities vary to almost every conceivable 
degree ; from those of so vital a nature as really to make the 
election void, to those too trivial for serious notice. 

'Terhaps the notices were not posted up; or there were not 
enough of them; or they were not put in the right places; or 
they were not issued long enough beforehand; or they were 
not signed by the right persons, or by enough persons, or were 
not signed at all; or the time of opening and closing the polls 
was not stated ; or if stated, the time was too early or too late, 
too long or too short, or in the evening when it should have 
been in the day; or an improper place was designated for the 
meeting, such as a certain private house, barn, cornfield, grove, 
or woodpile, instead of the schoolhouse; or the election was or- 
dered on a wrong day of the week; * * * or the voting 
was viva voce instead of by ballot; * * * or the candidate 
was ineligible ; or the voters' names were not registered ; * 
* * or questions were voted on which were not announced 
in the call; or the clerk kept his records in pencil, or did not 
record them at all, or carried them off in his hat and lost them. 



38 

* * * Upon the defeat of a favorite candidate or measure, 
the search for flaws in the election commences, and upon the 
discovery of one or more of those mentioned, (no difficult task it 
would seem,) an attempt is immediately made to prove that the 
election was void, or to break down the business action of the 
meeting, and such attempts often result in expensive litigar 
tion, angry feelings, and permanent mutual alienation. 

"If the tone of these remarks should seem like trifling, I beg 
to say that I speak but the simple truth. My official corre- 
spondence is burdened with such things, however preposterous, 
and the letters are all answered, with the seriousness and 
candor to which the earnestness and good faith of the writers 
entitle them . I am not to be understood, of course, as charac- 
terizing in the foregoing manner all local school elections, or 
even a considerable fraction of them, but I do say that Die 
tendency of such multitudinous district elections is bad and 
that continually." 

Without discussing the difficulties growing out of the in- 
stability of district boundaries, the multiplication of districts, 
and the want of provision for transferring pupils from one dis- 
trict to another, let us consider the subject of grading and 
classification . 

The merits of graded schools need not be argued. Their 
superiority in economy and efficiency is admitted. Now, there 
is no difficulty in applying this principle to our country schools. 
Abolish the present district boundaries, except so far as they 
may be used to aid in the establishment of primary, grammar 
and high schools, and, with a township organization, we have 
the same system that in our cities and larger villages is found 
to be so much superior to the independent district system. We 
are not only unable to secure gradation of the schools under ex- 
isting arrangements, but classification also is practically impos- 
sible in the majority of them. 

The average number of scholars in the public schools in the 
agricultural districts is not more than thirty-five. The number 
of branches required to be taught is at least six. Here are 
six classes to start with, or an average of about six pupils to 
a class. But there must be classes to correspond with the at- 
tainments of the scholars. This will require that there should 
be at least three in spelling, three in reading, two in writing, 
three in English grammar, two in geography and three in arith- 
metic or fifteen in all. If history of the United States is 



89 

taught, and if other branches are required, we have from one 
to five classes more. But with fifteen classes reciting, each 
once a day, and allowing one hour for recesses, we find that 
twenty minutes a day is all the time that can be allowed for 
the instruction and drill of each class. But this estimate is 
too favorable. The truth is that the time-table of many of 
the schools will show that not more than ten minutes can be 
allowed to each class for explanatory illustration and testing 
the pupil's knowledge of the subject. 

Superintendent Bateman, discussing the subject says: 
"Bounded by district lines which effectually prevent any com- 
prehensive plan of co-operation by which the schools of the 
township can be graded, and each child be allowed to attend 
that school which is nearest, or which is, all things considered, 
the best for him, and by which alone the true end and best re- 
sults of common schools can be realized; hampered by transfer 
restrictions, which, though necessary under the existing ar- 
rangement, are nevertheless, subject to such contingencies of 
indifference or caprice, or captiousness, as to cut off, to a great 
extent, the very privileges they were intended to secure with a 
limited territory, limited means, and a scanty number of 
pupils; each district is left to make its way as best it can, in 
isolation and weakness. In nine cases out of ten, there is in 
each rural district but one schoolhouse, one teacher, and one 
school. The first has generally but one room, is too small, 
poorly ventilated, imperfectly furnished, and, of necessity, des- 
titute of the best modern improvements; the second is such as 
the scanty means and divided counsels of the districts will en- 
able it to secure ; and the third is what the preceding conditions 
must inevitably make it. 

"Into that one room, and to the care of that one teacher, 
press all the school-going children of the district. All ages, 
and both sexes are there ; from the brave little fellow with his 
primer, intent upon the mysteries of the alphabet, to the lads 
and misses who are ready to grapple with analysis and frac- 
tions and roots, while one and another comes with a request 
from father or mother to be allowed to study book-keeping:, or 
natural philosophy or algebra, or the Latin grammar. What 
I repeat, can the teacher do? The number of scholars, with 
the diversity of their attainments, ranging from the merest 
rudiments to the most advanced, added to the number of 
studies either required or desired to be taught, sets at defiance 
all attempts at classification. Is it not lamentable to see an 
otherwise magnificent system of public instruction thus shorn 



40 

of its strength at the vital point where the school is organized 
and the teaching performed ?" 

The adoption of the town system of school organization was 
recommended by my predecessor, in his annual report for 1863, 
and its many advantages over the local district system were 
pointed out. He showed that under it we can secure that su- 
pervision of the schools we need; that taxation will be more 
equitable; that the ill feeling consequent upon changes in dis- 
trict boundaries will cease to arise ; that schoolhouses will be 
built when and where they are needed, and taxes for their erec- 
tion will be less burdensome; that schools can be properly 
graded; that teachers qualified for the different grades can be 
employed; that the system will be more economical than the 
present one; that the schools will be more uniform in the 
length of time they are taught during the year; that incompe- 
tent teachers will be sifted out, and that those employed will 
secure more permanent positions. 

The state superintendent of Pennsylvania, after a trial of 
this system, says: 

"By our system, a township, borough or city is a school dis- 
trict. In very large cities there may be two or more districts, 
but the boards must be united for managing the schools in one 
organization, under the name of a board of control. The secre- 
tary who is ex-officio district superintendent, visits the schools 
monthly, and reports to the board, and transacts all the minor 
business of the board, and is paid such compensation as the 
board shall think proper. The chief advantages of our town- 
ship system are the facilities afforded for grading the schools 
wherever it is practicable, the simplicity of reporting to the 
state department, which it affords, the ease with which uni- 
formity of text-books can be secured, the means which it af- 
fords for securing a superintendent of each district, and the 
systematic visiting and reporting the condition of the schools to 
the board, and the ease with which each board may be commu- 
nicated with and reached, through the official department of 
the State Journal, which is made a state organ, and sent to 
the secretary of each board at the public expense. In a popu- 
lation of three millions we have only about 1,700 boards of di- 
rectors. We should have not more than 1,500; but we were 
vexed with a few independent districts which should never 
have been allowed, by which the number is increased." 

We believe that no objection can be made to this system 
which cannot be easily answered and removed. All the essen- 



41 

tial principles of our present law would remain. It would sim- 
plify our school machinery, and would easily adapt itself to 
our educational wants and habits. Some of the immediate 
benefits of the town organization would be, 

1. To secure in each town as many schools as there are now 
districts, and more or less as may be found best; all of them, 
however, so organized as to be parts of a system adapted to the 
special wants of the community. 

2. To end disputes about district boundaries. 

3. To dispense with a large number of school officers, and 
to reduce largely the number of school elections. 

4. To provide for each child going to that school which is 
most convenient and beneficial to him, considering his attain- 
ments and the studies he is pursuing. 

5. To diminish the aggregate expenses of the schools, and 
to establish a uniform rate of taxation for the town. 

6. To secure an efficient system of school supervision for 
each town. 

7. To enable every town to establish a system of graded 
schools. 

8. To secure for the schools better teachers and for the 
teachers better compensation. 

9. To improve schoolhouses and to provide them with what 
is needed for the use of the schools. 

10. To promote uniformity of text-books and to introduce 
methods of teaching and courses of study. 

11. To obtain more reliable statistics. 

12. To secure and to care for town libraries, containing a 
greater variety and a larger number of books than can be ob- 
tained under the present system. 

In regard to the practical effects of the adoption of this sys- 
tem, the able school officer to whom reference has repeatedly 
been made in this discussion, Hon. Newton Bateman, says : 

"Not a right, power, or duty of the state superintendent, or 
of any county superintendent, would be added, subtracted, 
changed or modified in any manner whatever; the office of 
township treasurer would be just as necessary as before, and 
his powers and duties remain substantially as now, though 
much simplified by the abolition of the districts ; the boards of 
trustees and directors would continue in the discharge of their 



42 

respective duties until the day fixed by law for the election 
of th^ new {.own skip school hoards. Upon the election and 
qualification of these boards, all district boards of directors 
throughout the state would cease to exist * * * all 
schoolhouses, lands and other district school property, would 
revert to and come into the control of the township board of 
education, who would thereupon assume and exercise the 
rights, powers and duties, all and singular, which now devolve 
upon boards of trustees and directors respectively. * * * 
Not a common school in the state would be closed or inter- 
fered with, not a teacher discharged, .not an existing contract 
annulled. The great educational work of the state would move 
right on as if nothing had happened; no visible sign would 
appear to show that an immense administrative reform had 
taken place, and a new and glorious era dawned upon our sys- 
tem of public instruction. The vast accumulations of school 
property would be preserved intact; but few schoolhouses 
would have to be moved, and none at all immediately, for, as 
a general rule, school sites and buildings that are in the right 
places now, would be equally so then. Thus, quietly, without 
shock or confusion, almost without public knowledge or no- 
tice, the system would lay down the heavy, galling harness of 
her ten-thousand-headed policy, and assume the light, elastic 
armor of a fresh, compact and simple, but far more expansive 
and powerful organization. As in the case of our matchless 
civil government, the people would be reminded of its exist- 
ence chiefly by the richness of the blessings which it would 
dispense." 



43 



TOWNSHIP SYSTEM. 
From the Eeport of A J. Craig, 1868. 

In order that the advantages of the township system may be 
clearly perceived, some of the disadvantages of the present sys- 
tem will be portrayed. Each town is divided into school dis- 
tricts, varying in number from one to sixteen, and averaging 
about six or seven to the town for the whole state. Each of 
these districts is a separate, independent republic, accountable 
to no higher authority, and dependent upon none, except in the 
matter of the examination of teachers, and the annual receipt 
and expenditure of a small amount of money. The first result 
of this isolated condition, and consequent separate action is 

UNEQUAL TAXATION. 

Adjoining pieces of real estate, valued at the same rate by 
the assessor, are often taxed for school purposes in the ratio of 
three to one, simply because the size or character of the dis- 
tricts in which they lie is such that to support a school in one 
it is necessary to levy a tax, with a percentage three times as 
great as in the other. State, county and town taxes are as- 
sessed upon all property in the town on the same ratio, or per- 
centage, and thus the burden of supporting the government 
falls equally upon all who have taxes to pay; but in the mat- 
ter of education inequality is the law, no two school districts 
in any town having, as a rule, the same percentage. 

It is a foundation principle of our system that the public 
schools shall be free; that the property of the state shall edu- 
cate the children, but in carrying out this principle it is not 
necessary to violate another, which prescribes that taxation 
shall be uniform ; and it is hard to understand how our people 
have submitted for so many years to the evil of unequal taxa- 
tion consequent upon district organization. Education is a 
matter of general interest, and it is not to benefit the parent 
as an individual, or even for the child's own sake that the 
state establishes free schools. It is because education is neces- 
sary to the preservation of our government and institutions — 
necessary to society and the life of the state, that it claims and 



44 

has the right to tax the people to support schools; and the 
burden imposed should be distributed as equally as possible. 

Each town is divided into road-districts, but we do not re- 
quire the people residing in a particular district, through which 
a river runs, to build a bridge for the use of the town, county 
or state at large, as well as for themselves; nor is there any 
justice in compelling the inhabitants of a petty circumscribed 
school district to build the house in which their children are 
to be educated, so long as education 1 is a matter of public in- 
terest, and those children will, in after years, be scattered all 
over the state. 

The second evil inherent in the present system is: 

EQUALITY OP PRIVILEGES. 

In one district school will be maintained nine or ten months 
each year; in an adjoining one only five or six months, and yet 
the percentage of taxation may be greater in the latter than 
in the former. In one school competent teachers may be em- 
ployed, and the range of studies pursued be such as to afford 
the pupils an education almost academic in its character; while 
in another only a few primary branches are taught by an inex- 
perienced and incapable instructor. Districts are often organ- 
ized in such form that a person resides in one while the 
greater part of his property is situated in another; and many 
live in close proximity to school-houses to which they wo aid 
be glad to send their children, but cannot because they are not 
in the same district, while the houses to which they are com- 
pelled to -lend them are remote and difficult of access. 

It often happens that a populous district, possesses a small, 
badly arranged house, while an adjoining district, with few 
scholars, has a large and convenient one; yet the children of 
the populous district cannot attend the school in the other 
without consent of the board and the payment of a tuition fee, 
and the populous district may have but a limited amount of 
assessable property, and not be able to erect a suitable school- 
house for a term of years. 

In the third place the present system is a fruitful source or 
cause of discord and contention. It is natural that a small 
and weak district should seek to obtain additions to its terri- 



45 

tory from neighboring districts larger and stronger than itself. 
Application is made to the town supervisors for a change in 
the boundaries of certain districts. When the changes asked 
for are granted, those individuals removed from old 
associations appeal to the state superintendent to set 
aside the action of the supervisors. When the super- 
visors refuse to make the changes desired, the parties 
petitioning for such changes take an appeal, and ask that the 
supervisors be ordered to grant the prayer of the petitioners. 
Each party uses all the means at command to secure the ends 
desired, and personalities and vituperation often take the place 
of fact and argument. Thus neighborhoods and communities 
are violently agitated and enmities are engendered which 
last for years, seriously crippling the schools, and impeding 
the progress of education. 

It is often very difficult to decide cases brought before the 
state superintendent on appeal, the facts and arguments on 
one side being about balanced by those on the other, and no 
matter what the decision may be, it fails to satisfy both sides. 
Between thirty and forty appeals have been decided since the 
first of January last, and a large majority of them relate to 
the organization of districts, or a change in their boundaries. 

Again, the district system is unnecessarily expensive. There 
are nearly five thousand districts in the state, each of which 
must have a treasurer who is required to give a bond for the 
faithful discharge of the duties of his office. Besides the ex- 
pense of the instrument itself, the trouble of getting sureties, 
etc., the bond must have a revenue stamp affixed of the value 
of one dollar. The treasurer is elected every three years, but 
on account of resignations, removals, etc., the office is really 
filled about once in two years. This makes an average an- 
nual expense of between two thousand and two thousand five 
hundred dollars; an unnecessary expenditure, as every dollar 
of the money received and paid out by the district treasurers 
comes through the hands of the town treasurers, who have 
themselves given bonds for the safe keeping of the funds en- 
trusted to their care, and who might as well pay them out in 
detail to teachers and others entitled to them. There are 
many other evils incident to the district system, as all who are 



46 

familiar with, its working are aware, but space will not be 
taken to enumerate them all. For most of them the township 
system furnishes a simple and ample remedy, as will be seen 
when its features are carefully examined. 

The fundamental principle of this system is that each town 
constitutes a district for purposes of taxation and gen- 
eral supervision and management. This does away at 
once with unequal taxation. As all taxes for school 
purposes are levied upon the town as a whole, every man pays 
the same percentage on the assessed valuation of his property. 

The present districts would constitute sub-districts, in each 
of which an officer should be elected annually, called a director, 
and all the directors in a town would constitute a 
board of directors, which should have the entire con- 
trol and management of the schools and school inter- 
ests. The secretary of this board takes the place of 
the old town superintendent, visits and supervises the 
schools, grades them, and assists the teachers in classify- 
ing the pupils, etc., in a word is the efficient agent of the board 
and the connecting link between the county superintendent 
and the schools. 

The advantages of this system are many, and evident. 

1. Each parent would be permitted to send his children to 
the school which best accommodated them, and all the expense, 
trouble and ill-feeling consequent upon the frequent changes in 
the boundaries of districts would be avoided. 

2. School houses would be built when and where they are 
needed. Many districts are now compelled to suffer, year after 
year, all the inconveniences and loss occasioned by the use of 
a small, badly constructed, ill-arranged house, because of dif- 
ficulties concerning the site, or the indisposition of the voters 
to furnish the means to erect a new building. Under the town- 
ship system these difficulties would be avoided, as the board, 
composed of delegates from all parts of the town, would not 
be likely to be influenced by local disputes in reference to the 
site for a house, but would locate it at such point as would best 
accommodate those for whom it was selected; and as the funds 
for building the house would be drawn from the whole town, 
the tax upon each individual would be so small as not to be in 



47 

the least burdensome, and there would be no necessity for 

delay. 

3. Schools can be graded more easily under the township 
than under the separate district system. The districts, as now 
organized, as a general rule, are too feeble in numbers and 
wealth to maintain more than one department, and the law 
of 1858, permitting districts to unite for high school purposes, 
has been entirely inoperative, no action having been taken by 
any district in accordance with its provisions. The summer 
schools, in the country especially, are primary schools in most 
respects, while the winter schools embrace all grades of 
pupils from the primary to the grammar or high school. This 
condition of things necessitates the employment of better edu- 
cated, more experienced teachers during the winter term, at 
a cost for their services of about double the amount paid for 
the same length of time in the summer, while there is not on 
an average, more than a dozen children in each district whose 
capacity, advancement, or range of studies, demands a better 
or more costly teacher than the one employed during the sum- 
mer ; and thus the education of these few costs the districts the 
difference between the wages paid in summer and winter, 
amounting, for a four months' school, to from thirty to sixty 
dollars. Now if there were, within the reach of a larger class 
of pupils in three or four districts, a school of a higher grade, 
to which they could all have access, the winter school in their 
respective districts could be continued as a primary or inter- 
mediate school, under the charge of the same teacher employed 
in the summer, and one higher grade teacher would suffice for 
several districts. By this arrangement all the pupils in a town 
would be divided into two grades, at a cost for tuition not 
greater than that now incurred; and the total additional ex- 
pense would be measured by the cost of erecting a sufficient 
number of buildings to accommodate the higher grade of pupils. 
In many instances, by a proper arrangement of the terms of 
school, the houses already erected would serve for both grades 
of pupils. In some district, in which the house is so situated as 
to be easy of access to the larger scholars in several surround- 
ing districts, let there be a term of school commencing so soon 
as the ground is settled and the weather is pleasant in spring, 



48 

and continuing to the first of July; and a fall term commenc- 
ing about the middle of August and continuing till the middle 
of November; thus affording the primary pupils six months or 
more of uninterrupted school during the most pleasant season 
of the year, which would be far more beneficial to them, intel- 
lectually and physically, than the usual summer and winter 
terms, with the extremes of warm and cold weather, producing 
sickness, tardiness, and irregularity of attendance, and thus 
wasting a good share of the money expended. The winter 
term could then be devoted entirely to the grammar or highei 
grade scholars, who, under a competent instructor, whose whole 
time was given to them and their studies, would make as much 
progress in one term as they now do, in the mixed schools, in 
two or more. Again, whenever a new school house is to be 
built, its location, size, and internal arrangements can all be 
adapted to the new order of things, so that, in process of time, 
without any violent changes, or any appreciable increase of ex- 
pense, the facilities for maintaining graded schools can be es- 
tablished throughout the state. 

4. Better supervision of the schools. The county superin- 
tendent, though exercising a general supervision over all the 
schools in his county, is entirely unable to give, to each school, 
that personal attention necessary to obtain a complete knowl- 
edge of its condition and wants; and some of the most active 
and efficient superintendents have felt the need of a local offi- 
cer, to co-operate with and aid them in effecting improvements 
in the management of the schools. As before stated, the sec- 
retary of the town board will be the proper person to have 
the immediate supervision of the schools, and will have power, 
under the direction of the board, to grade and arrange them, 
suggest and enforce rules for their management and govern- 
ment, and advise with and assist the teachers in all cases in 
which advice and assistance are needed. He should be ap- 
pointed by the board, and he may be one of their number, or 
not, so that the best person to fill the place is selected. 

We should thus secure all the advantages of the town super- 
intendent system, without losing any of the benefits resulting 
from the establishment of the county superintendency. 

5. Economy of administration. All the expenses now in- 



49 

curred in organizing new districts, and in changing the bound- 
aries of old ones, would be saved. Each child being permitted 
to attend that school which best accommodated him, and the 
amount of tax which each person would pay being the same, no 
matter in what sub-district he resided, there would be no rea- 
son for altering districts; consequently very few changes 
would be made, and those few would be easily effected, and at- 
tended with little or no expense. Again, the liability to a loss 
of moneys is in proportion to the number of hands through 
which they pass, and it is no wonder that, with nearly five 
thousand disbursing officers, there is a good deal of waste of 
district funds every year. 

Under the township system the financial affairs of all the 
schools in a town being managed by the same board, one treas- 
urer would be sufficient, and, in order not to multiply officers, 
the town treasurer, who now collects and receives all the school 
moneys belonging to his town, might be the treasurer of the 
board, and upon the order of its secretary, countersigned by 
the president, could pay out such moneys, when needed. Thus 
the number of disbursing officers would be reduced from nearly 
five thousand, to less than eight hundred, and besides the 
diminished liability to loss on account of the decrease in the 
number of disbursing officers, the expense incurred in execut- 
ing nearly two thousand treasurers' bonds each year would 
be saved. 

6. There would be an equality of privileges in the different 
districts, as, the schools being supported by a general tax, 
justice would require that they be maintained an equal length 
of time throughout the town, and we should not see, as we now 
do, so great a disparity in school privileges in adjoining dis- 
tricts. 

Free schools are founded upon the principle that it is the 
duty of the state to see that the children within its limits are 
educated. To this end a generous public fund is provided, and 
the people are yearly taxed to support the system; yet the 
kind and amount of instruction given to the children of differ- 
ent districts depend entirely upon influences which the law 
does not seek to guide or control. ISTow common sense and 
justice demand, that wherever children enough to organize a 



50 

school are found, one should be established, with all the means 
and appliances necessary to secure the result desired, — the 
proper education of the children attending it. 

7. Employment of Teachers. It being the special duty of 
the secretary of the town board to visit the schools, become 
acquainted with their condition and wants, the capacity, tact, 
and success of the different teachers, he would be better quali- 
fied to select the person suited to each school than nine tenths 
of the district clerks under the present system possibly can be ; 
thus better teachers would be employed — that is, teachers bet- 
ter adapted to their positions — and they would not be changed 
each term, as they now are, but would remain in one school 
so long as they were successful in their work. Incompetent 
and unsuccessful teachers would be sifted out, the standard of 
attainments of all those employed would be gradually and 
surely raised, and the consequent progress of the schools would 
be certain ami uninterrupted. 

The new system of examination by the county superintend- 
ent has done much to elevate the standard of attainments, and 
weed out unsuccessful teachers; but, inasmuch as an examina- 
tion in regard to scholarship is not always a true test of the 
qualifications of an applicant, and it is not possible for the 
county superintendent to give that personal attention to each 
school necessary to enable him to judge correctly in regard to 
the skill and faithfulness of the teacher, many persons are still 
employed who have no real fitness for their position, and who 
are retained through favoritism or indifference on the part of 
those by whom they are engaged. Such persons would be 
quietly dropped from the list of teachers, and would engage in 
other pursuits, or, by the use of proper means, become fitted for 
their responsible positions as instructors of youth. 

I have thus presented some of the main points in which it 
is believed that the township system is superior to the district 
system, and it only remains to notice some of the objections 
urged to it by those who object to change, or who are satisfied 
with the system as it is. 

The first objection is to the raising of taxes for the sup- 
port of schools by the town at large. Looking at the matter 
from a personal standpoint, many think a general tax would 



51 

be unjust to different localities, for the reason that children of 
school age are not proportioned to the valuation of property,- 
and thus a wealthy district, with few children would pay for 
the education of children residing in other districts. This ob- 
jection is the same one so often urged against free schools by 
the childless capitalist, or the wealthy tax-payer whose children 
are already educated, "I ought not to pay for educating my 
neighbor's children." As before stated, free schools are es- 
tablished on the assumption that "the property of the state 
shall educate the children of the state," and consistency re- 
quires that the details of the system shall be so arranged as 
to carry out this fundamental principle. What justice is there 
in requiring that a specified portion of territory shall furnish 
the means to educate the children residing therein, so long as 
you withhold from the tax-payers the power to decide who shall 
inhabit that territory? 

The fact is, that the fairest method of maintaining the 
schools would be by a tax upon the whole state, and the larger 
the district embraced in one organization, the more just and 
equal will be the taxation. 

The moneys apportioned yearly by the state superintendent, 
and those levied upon the towns by the county board of super- 
visors, are distributed to each district in proportion to the 
number of children between the ages of four and twenty re- 
siding therein; and as the latter moneys are raised by a tax 
upon each town as a whole, and not by separate districts, the 
plan advocated is, in fact, in operation already, and only needs 
to be extended to the levy and collection of all the funds needed 
to support the schools. 

In the second place, many will object to the raising of funds 
by the whole town, to build a school house in a particular dis- 
trict, who would be willing that the schools should be sup- 
ported by a general tax, after the houses are built. This ob- 
jection is removed by considering the town as a single district, 
which needs several houses to accommodate its pupils. It is 
true, that, for convenience sake, the town is divided into sub- 
districts, yet, for general purposes it is a unit, and should be 
managed accordingly. Each town is divided into road dis- 
tricts, and when a new highway is to be laid out, the whole 



52 

town is called upon to pay the expense incurred for right of 
way, etc., though "but few of its tax-payers are personally bene- 
fited; and when a bridge is to be built no one thinks of asking 
the citizens residing in the road district in which the bridge is 
needed, to furnish the funds to pay for erecting it; and it can- 
not be that the education of the children of Wisconsin, is a 
matter of less interest to the people than the laying out of 
highways, and the erection of bridges. Eeturns made to the 
state superintendent show that, on an average, in the larger 
counties, not more than four school houses are built in each 
year; and this would give to each town but one to build every 
three years, and this burden, being borne by all the tax-payers 
would be so light, as scarcely to be felt. All the children 
would thus be provided with school privileges, and the pro- 
tracted effort and struggle now necessary in most districts, in 
order to secure the erection of a school house, would be avoided. 

In order to avoid all seeming injustice, it might be provided, 
that those districts which had, within a certain limited time, 
erected good and substantial houses, should be exempted from 
the payment of the taxes raised for building school houses, for 
a number of years after the adoption of the township system. 

All other inequalities and seeming irregularities can be as 
well provided for, and it is confidently believed, that a law can 
be framed, preserving for our school system all its prominent 
vital and valuable features, and engrafting thereon such addi- 
tional ones as will give it harmony and completeness, make it 
a better exponent of our educational standing, more worthy 
of affection and generous support, and insure the successful 
accomplishment of its great design, the education and elevation 
of the whole people. 

THE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM. 

(By Superintendent Fallows.) 

Hon. Samuel Fallows, in his report for 1870, devotes several 
pages to commendation of the township system. He 
quotes with approval the enumeration of its benefits made by 
Supt. McMynn, which is given on page 37. He also commends 



53 

the statement of the disadvantages of the single district sys- 
tem set forth by Supt. Craig and his enumeration of the bene- 
fits of the township system. He then quotes Supt. Bate- 
man's statement of the readiness and lack of friction attend- 
ing the change. See pages 37 and 38. This is followed by 
a lengthy quotation from the School Monthly written by As- 
sistant Superintendent Pratt from which the following quotas 
tion is made : 

At present, one half the schools at least are taught by young 
persons, almost entirely incompetent for the work. This great 
evil would not be wholly cured, but could be greatly mitigated 
under the town system; as could also the miserable plan of a 
constant change of teachers. At present, each district looks 
out for itself alone. The schools are opened about the same 
time. There is a rush to the spring examinations; the schools 
are hastily filled; the summer term is taught and the teacher 
goes; the fall examinatiton comes on, and the same thing is 
repeated. Out of 5,000 schools, over 3,000 change teachers 
every term. A town board would engage teachers sufficient 
to fill the schools; they would place them where they would 
be most useful. Even where the schools are not kept open 
more than five or six months during the year, it would be pos- 
sible to give a good corps of teachers something like permanent 
employment. It is far less important that the schools be all 
open at the same time in a town than that they be well taught. 
A teacher having taught two or three months in a certain 
school, is transferred, let us suppose, for a similar term, to 
another school. Some of the larger pupils will probably follow 
her. Under suitable restrictions, all children may be allowed 
to attend any school that is open and within reach. It is of 
less moment that children attend school " not less than 
five months in the year," than that they learn something when 
they do go. ~No intelligent person needs to be told that a twd 
months' training under a competent teacher is vastly better 
than a four months' droning and drawling under an incompe- 
tent one. 

In 1871 Superintendent Fallows renews at length his rec- 
ommendation of the township system. From this report the 
following extracts are taken: 

A. F. North, Esq., an intelligent teacher and town officer, 
and superintendent elect of Waukesha county, thus presents 
the subject in reference to "Inequality of Taxation under the 
'District System.'" 



54 



"The foundations of our free institutions were laid by the 
Puritans, when they made this compact in the May-flower, viz. : 
'That every settler should have equal rights, and that they 
would obey the laws they should make for the common good.' 
This sentence contains the essence of all free government. 
But they saw clearly that the stability of such a government 
as well as the well-being of the individual could only be main- 
tained by universal education, and they took measures at atr 
early date (1636) to secure this end by action of the state. 
Enlightened statesmen throughout the world are bearing tes- 
timony to the soundness of these views, and in spite of bigots 
and reactionists, are pressing forward to their attainment; 
and announce as the safety of the state depends upon the 
intelligence of the people, the state must secure this by popular 
education — in other words the property in the state must edu- 
cate the children in the state, and this with at least some good 
degree of equality. It is upon this basis that the school fund 
is distributed. It is apportioned, not in the ratio of the 
property in the district, but upon the number of children to 
be educated therein. And this is the true principle, and should 
be of general application. But it is not so, and very few per- 
sons are aware how widely different from this is the fact 
with regard to the distribution of the burden in our towns 
under the present district system. 

"The annexed table will show its operation in Pewaukee, 
Waukesha county, which is believed to be a type of the con- 
dition of things, generally, throughout the state: 





No. of 
scholar?. 


Valne of prop- 
erty in district. 


Amount per 
scholar. 


District No. 1 


221 
44 
92 
79 
47 
29 
76 
48 
97 

732 


$235, 09C 00 

124,563 00 

172,285 00 

61,393 00 

47,080 00 

72,922 00 

116,198 00 

75,209 00 

105,024 00 

$1,008,964 00 


$1,068 00 


District No. 2 

District No. 3 

District No. 4 


2,376 00 

1,861 00 

784 00 


District No 7 


1,001 00 


District No. 8 


2,860 00 


District No. 9 


1,529 00 


District No. 10 

District No. 6 


1,566 00 
1,083 00 


Whole town 


$1,378 00 





" By reference to the above table, it will be seen that while 
in the whole town there is $1,378 for each scholar; in District 



55 

No &, there is only f 784, about one half this amount and in 
District No. 8, tnere is $2,8G0 ; over double the average amount. 
I hope to be able soon to show how this matter stands in the 
other towns in this county. Such a state of things is conclusive 
argument in favor of the township system." 

I also quote a few paragraphs from a report of Hon. A. E. 
Bankin, Secretary of the Vermont Board of Education, and 
may add that Vermont, in common with other New England 
States, is moving in this direction, following the lead of Mas- 
sachusetts, where the system is now fully established by law, 
to the manifest great improvement of the common schools of 
that state: 

"While we strive assiduously so to economize as not to 
increase the expense of our educational system, we do not take 
proper pains that the money which is annually expended shall 
be so applied as to secure the largest returns. 

" Let me enumerate some of the prominent obstacles which 
are in the way of the greatest efficiency of our schools : 

" 1. Total lack of or insufficient supervision. 

"2. Constant change of supervision. 

"3. Poorly qualified teachers. 

" 4. Constant change of teachers. 

" 5. Lack of interest in schools, on the part of patrons. 

" 0. Employment of relatives and favorites without regard 
to qualifications. 

" 7. Too small schools in many districts. 

" 8. Too short schools in many districts. 

" 9. Employment of immature and incompetent teachers in 
small districts. 

"10. Poor schoolhouses. 

" 11. Irregular attendance. 

"12. G-eneral lack of facilities to aid the teacher. 

"13. No schools at all in many districts. 

"14. Lack of proper classification. 

"15. Pupils study what they choose and not what they 
ought. 

" These twice seven and one plagues of our common school 
system will be recognized by every one who has had any exper- 
ience in connection with the public schools of the state. 
" If it should be shown that this nest of evils which so impairs 
the efficiency of our schools could in some measure be removed 
by a radical change of system, no one surely would oppose 
such change. 

" I am confident that these evils may in very great measure 



56 

be alleviated by a change in our system of public schools. 
I believe that the adoption of what is called the town system, 
in contradistinction from the district system, would tend 
largely to diminish them." 

Again in 1872, he urges the system, giving quotations favor- 
able to it from the reports of county superintendents. 



TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOLS. 

(From the report of Edward Searing — 1875.) 

Having long been persuaded of the superior advantages 
inherent in the township system of school organization, I rec- 
ommended in my first report, as steps toward the ultimate 
adoption of that system generally throughout the state, two 
distinct measures of legislation: (1.) A law to encourage the 
voluntary creation of town high-schools: and, (2.) A law to 
provide for uniformity of text-books in towns, and to authorize 
the purchase and ownership of books by the same. It appeared 
to me that if a number of towns could be induced to take vol- 
untary action in these directions, not only would great gain 
result to these towns, but the question of the adoption of the 
complete system of organization by these and others would 
be only a question of time. The last legislature gave full 
endorsement to the former recommendation by the passage 
of the high-school law. To its partial endorsement of the lat- 
ter I have elsewhere referred. 

As soon as other duties, and a full previous consideration 
of the task would allow, I prepared a circular setting forth the 
purpose and character of the high-school law, with such com- 
ments upon its provisions as would render them easily intelli- 
gible, and with what appeared to be judicious courses of 
instruction for the schools contemplated. 

As this circular was not ready for distribution until August, 
and as the law was not generally known and understood 
throughout the state previously, no schools could be in operation 
under its provisions until September, or later. Hence it is 
impossible to embrace in the present report any statistics of 
the number, character, work, and cost of these schools. Full 



57 

information respecting them will be given in my next report. 
I am enabled to say, however, that the law has met with 
very general favor, and that there is reason to believe it will, 
in due time, accomplish all that its projectors and friends have 
anticipated. I herewith present the circular, above referred 
to, and follow it with brief reports from the county superin- 
tendents respecting its popularity, and its applicability to the 
needs of their respective localities. 

HIGH SCHOOL, CIRCULAR. 

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 

Madison, August 8, 1875. 
To school officers and friends of education in Wisconsin: 

Dr. Kyerson, for thirty years past the distinguished 
and successful chief superintendent of public instruction of 
the province of Ontario, Canada, recently said, in substance, 
of the American public school-system, that in the cities and 
larger villages it gives admirable results, the schools there 
being among the best in the world; but that in giving nothing 
better to rural neighborhoods than the present ungraded dis- 
trict schools it is there deserving of no praise. The results 
there accomplished, he asserts, are " far below and short of 
the state appropriations made and the machinery employed 
for the sound education of the people." Yet he maintains 
that the 1 rural parts of the state are " the peculiar field of a 
national school-law and system." 

Hon. Newton Bateman, of Illinois, says in his last biennial 
report: "Leaving out of view the many exceptional cases, it 
may be broadly affirmed that the educational facilities afforded 
in the cities and towns, as a whole, are so superior to those 
afforded in the country districts, as a whole, as to make it 
easier to contrast than to compare them." 

An intelligent writer, in a recent number of the "Illinois 
Schoolmaster," says: "It is a sad comment on the intelligence 
of the age that the status of the district schools of today is 
but little better than that of twenty years ago." 

When some eighteen months ago the writer of this had just 
been elected to the office he holds, a legal friend incidentally, 
but with some earnestness said to him : " I hope you will turn 
your chief attention to the schoolhouse at the cross-roads." 



58 

The poor character and the scanty amount of the instruction in 
"the schoolhouse at the cross-roads," have long been known 
and deplored by intelligent American educators. The short- 
comings of that school, scarcely less forcibly indicated by the 
suggestive advice of the lawyer, who was in no sense an educa- 
tional man, than by the direct testimony of some of the most 
experienced and wisest of educational men, are a source of 
constant concern to those entrusted with school supervision. 

Nay, the state itself acknowledges the failure, and seeks 
by various means a remedy. It provides costly normal schools, 
and numerous institutes for the better qualification of teach- 
ers. It establishes a system of examinations and licenses by 
which it is supposed the incompetent will be debarred from 
a work they are unqualified to perform. These things it does 
chiefly in the interest of country schools. Cities and towns 
will generally afford good educational facilities without the 
aid of the supervising machinery of the state. 

The chief defects of the country schools are the following: 

1. The teachers are unqualified. They are generally youth 
ful, of very slender intellectual attainments, inexperienced, 
and untrained. 

2. The schools are ungraded. There are consequently so 
many studies and classes that ,even the most accomplished 
teachers would labor under serious disadvantages from want 
of time. 

3. The course of instruction is so limited that it is not 
sufficient for the desires and needs of very many of the brighter 
and more advanced pupils. 

It is not a reproach to the teachers of country schools 
that they are young and unqualified. The schools do not offer 
them inducements to more than temporary, casual, and ineffi- 
cient work. 

It is not wholly a reproach to the country districts that 
inducements to higher qualifications are not offered by the 
schools. Country districts generally have a scanty population 
and limited means for providing good educational facilities. 

It is chiefly a reproach to the state system that it has taken 
no means to remove the surprising inequality of educational 
privileges enjoyed by those in different localities, and especially 
by the many in the country, and the few in' cities and towns. 



59 

Xot merely in strictly rural districts, but in many villages 
— even those which may number their inhabitants by the 
thousand — the schools fall below a reasonable standard in 
both the character and extent of the instruction they afford. 
Even here the teachers are poorly paid, are often inefficient, 
and are perpetually changing. The course of instruction is so 
limited that it does not meet the demands of all the pupils. 
Many of these must go from home to obtain not only the prep- 
aration that shall fit them for college, but even that which 
shall fairly qualify them for certain business avocations. 

The causes of these deficiencies are to be found partly in 
a public sentiment that fails to appreciate and demand higher 
educational facilities, and deems the cost of them too burden- 
some, and partly in the inexperience of school-boards which 
are perpetually changing their membership and have no just 
conception of either their duty or their responsibiltiy. The chief 
cause here, however, is also in the want of any well organized 
system by which the activities of these schools can be in com- 
mon directed and sustained. Local independence is carried 
to an unwise extreme. The state affords but a very small 
fractional part of their support, and has almost nothing to say 
in regard to their courses of study, the qualifications of their 
teachers, their relations to other schools, and their general 
management. 

Nominally we have a state system of public instruction, but 
practically this system is a great aggregation of nearly inde- 
pendent local schools, bound together by the gossamer threads 
of an annual " report " and an annual distribution of a pittance 
of a few cents to each school child. In the matter of an effi- 
cient system, securing the best results from the money 
expended, several other countries are in advance of us, not 
only in respect to the schools of rural neighborhoods, but also 
the uniformly good character of those in towns and villages. 

Again, the defective character of our state system is seen 
in the absence of a sufficient number of schools preparatory 
to the state university. The latter has been established at the 
head of our system for the benefit of the entire state; but the 
creation and maintenance of local means of preparation for the 
university have been left to chance. The state has prescribed 



60 

no preparatory courses of study, and has offered no material 
aid for the support of such courses. The consequence is that 
in but very few of the public schools can full preparation for 
the freshman classes of the university be had, and the latter 
is still obliged to do a large amount of preparatory work which 
is below its legitimate sphere of performance. The graded 
or high schools of most cities and larger villages have courses 
which if slightly increased would give the desired preparation ; 
but to accomplish this increase, it is asserted, would add to the 
already heavy burden of cost for the benefit of only a very 
small number of pupils. Hence, these schools are usually 
graded without reference to anything above them, and the few 
bright and ambitious youth who desire university culture 
must seek elsewhere, at an age when they most need home 
influences, the full preparation which should be more safely 
and inexpensively afforded them at home. 

To recapitulate, the defects in the educational system are: 
first, and chiefly, in the country district schools, where we find 
the teachers young and inefficient, the subjects of instruction 
and the classes instructed too numerous, and the absence of the 
incentives that local schools of higher grade afford; second, in 
the schools of many villages and cities, where we too fre- 
quently find poor instruction in the higher studies, and gener- 
ally find the course of these studies too limited; and third, in 
the consequent isolation of the state university from the sys- 
tem of schools beneath it. 

The most experienced and thoughtful educational men of 
the state hold that a remedy for these defects is to be found 
in a systematic encouragement and guidance of secondary 
(academic or high school) instruction. 

Let the state make a special appropriation, as is wisely done 
in some others, for the benefit of high shools, and let these 
be multiplied and rendered more efficient throughout the whole 
commonwealth. Let their relations to the existing country 
district schools be such as to relieve, encourage, and strengthen 
them; and let their relations to the university, on the other 
hand, be such as to enable it to properly perform its own legit- 
imate, large and beneficent work in the fields of higher culture. 

These were the ideas of the framers and supporters of the 



61 

free high-school law of last winter, a law which, it is hoped, 
will materially tend to unify and strengthen all the educational 
forces of the state. To explain the origin, purpose, and char- 
acter of this law, and to commend it to the intelligent interest 
of the people of Wisconsin, for whose "benefit it was enacted 
by their chosen representatives, is the chief purpose of this 
circular. 

A perusal of the law herewith given, with such comments 
as will be likely to render its provisions easily intelligible, 
will show that its leading purpose is to encourage the establish- 
ment of township high schools, and thus to afford to 
rural neighborhoods the benefit of the higher educa- 
tional facilities usually found only in cities and some 
large villages. It is the hope of the friends of this 
law that very many of the rural townships of the 
state will avail themselves of the advantages it offers. 
Some have already intelligently taken steps to do 
so, and many others are considering and discussing the pro- 
priety of similar action. In order to make clear the wisdom 
of the township school, its relation to the existing district 
schools and its influence upon the latter, no more excellent 
illustration can be found than is embodied in the graphic words 
of Hon. Newton Bateman, in the last Illinois school-report, 
to which earnest attention is invited: 

AN ILLUSTRATION. 

To place in a clear light the indirect influence referred to 
in at least one of its manifestations, we will take a familiar 
case. Here is a rural township divided into six districts (the 
average number), and in each district there is and for years 
has been one ordinary common school. No one of these six 
schools is particularly different from or better than the others. 
In each there is the usual diversity of ages, attainments, and 
conditions ; the usual books and studies, and the multiplication 
of classes incident to the necessities of the case. For the 
law admits all the youth in each district between the ages 
of six and twenty-one years, and during part of the year, at 
least, nearly all are in attendance. Little fellows who have 
just touched the line of eligibility, are there, for the first time, 
with their primers and spelling-books, intent upon mastering 



62 

the mysteries of the alphabet. There, too, are young men and 
misses, for the last time, having traversed again and again the 
most advanced ground of the scanty curriculum, yet hoping to 
gather up some additional crumbs of knowledge before saying 
good-bye to school. Between those extremes are all the grada- 
tions of age, aptitude, and attainment — the dull and the bright, 
the fast and the slow, the gentle and the rough, the strong and 
the weak — all to be instructed and cared for in innumerable 
ways, by the one teacher. He does the best he can. If he 
can find four or five near enough together in knowledge and 
capacity to be formed into a class in any one of the branches 
taught, he is glad to do it. And so of still smaller numbers, 
down to even two. But after exhausting all possibilities in 
this direction, he finds that the remaining number of individ- 
ual ones, exceeds the whole number of his classes. To each of 
these individual pupils he must give such occasional and hur- 
ried assistance as he can. He works hard, but at a fearful 
disadvantage. Systematic teaching is out of the question — 
concentration of effort is impossible. He has but single min- 
utes where he should have five, ten, or fifteen — but seconds 
often, where he should have minutes. Instead of that smooth, 
quiet, and sequential movement of school-life and work which, 
reacting, produces mental tranquility and steadiness in the 
pupils, there is confusion, hurry, disorder, friction. No fixed 
time-table or schedule of school exercises is possible — no pupil 
knows just when he will be called upon to recite, or when he can 
have needful assistance. The order of work is never the same 
for two consecutive days unless by chance — cannot be. In- 
dividual pupils often go, in emergencies, a whole day or more 
without being able to secure a moment's attention from the 
teacher, and in the mean time they may be at a standstill for 
lack of light upon some obscure point in the lesson, or a hint 
of the way out of some tangle, or over some obstacle. And 
when the favorable moment for explanation comes, the teacher 
may be called away just at the critical point where a few words 
more would make everything clear. Discontent, listlessness, 
loss of interest, indifference, inevitably ensue. The tone of the 
school is lowered; a sort of weary spiritlessness settles down 
upon it; duties are performed in a careless, mechanical way, 
and the hours drag heavily on. There is nothing beyond, no 
other school to go to, no outside incentive to effort, no fresh 
breeze from any quarter to stir the surface of the sluggish 
waters. In each of the six schools the state of affairs is sub- 
stantially the same. 

Now let a good township high school, with fresh and ad- 
vanced studies, superior teachers, improved methods, regular 



63 

classes, progressive steps, and thorough systematic instruction, 
be opened in that township, and what a transformation would 
be wrought in those sluggish schools. What an awaking and 
quickening breath would reanimate those tired and torpid boys 
and girls. There is something to work for now; an objective 
point to be gained; a prize to be reached. The high school 
becomes a topic of absorbing interest to all who expect to 
continue their studies, and their enthusiasm is communicated 
to all the rest. The new school, its teachers, classes, discipline, 
and internal arrangements are eagerly discussed, morning, 
noon, and evening, and especially the conditions of admission 
and the chances of success. Those who are to go to the high 
school begin at once, with zest and spirit, the work of prepara- 
tion for the examinations that will crown or dissappoint their 
hopes. Early and late. they are at their books, which are sud- 
denly invested with a new interest and importance. As the 
decisive day approaches, knots of boys and bevies of girls gath- 
er in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, to review the subjects 
on which they are to be examined — each in turn questioning 
the others thereon. Those six district schools, lately so dull, 
glow with healthful excitement, and become very bee-hives 
of industry. Those who pass to the high school add to the 
interest already awakened, by their stirring accounts of their 
new duties and experiences. Meeting daily with the pupils 
of the lower schools, they answer innumerable questions, and 
seek to satisfy the tireless curiosity of their less fortunate 
companions. Strong bonds of friendship are thus established 
between the schools, and good feeling prevails on every hand. 
Such as failed at the first examination try again, and many 
who had expected their days of pupilage to end with the com- 
mon school, are induced by the contagion of example to recon- 
sider their purpose, and press on towards the high school. Thus 
is the whole aspect of school affairs in the township changed 
for the better. The children are wide awake, the parents be- 
come intersted, everybody catches more of less of the new in- 
spiration, — and yet this is but the indirect influence of one 
township high-school. 

Such are the advantages of a high school supplementing the 
district schools of a township. The establishment of such a 
school under the present law is neither difficult nor expensive. 
With one-half the cost of instruction paid by the state, the ex- 
pense to many towns where the school is most needed will be 
slight, and in some cases probably nothing. It is not neces- 



64 

sary to immediately erect a building. In nearly every town a 
building, or at least a room, already exists which, can be tem- 
porarily utilized for the school— a vacant hall, the basement of 
a church, an unused room in a school building or the like. Nearly 
every dollar expended can be and should be devoted to com- 
petent instruction. 

If the cost of maintaining the school throughout the year is 
too great for a poor township, let it be continued one or two 
terms in the year. A single yearly term held in the winter 
will in many localities meet a pressing need and furnish great 
benefit to the older pupils whose circumstances permit attend- 
ance at no other time, and for whom the district schools afford 
neither attraction nor profit. 

The location of the school will in most cases naturally be at 
the chief place of business resort in the town. If there is a 
village with anything like a central) location, it will be there. 
If there are two villages, the terms of the high school might 
be held alternately in each. If a village is located near the 
boun dry-line between two towns, both the latter might profit- 
ably unite in establishing and supporting the school. 

It would be decidedly for the common advantage to have the 
high schools maintained by townships rather than by districts, 
and a vigorous effort should always first be made to secure the 
desired action of the people through the town organization. 
The object, character, and scope of the law should be clearly 
and fairly explained to them. The benefit to the common 
schools in the better qualified teachers, fewer classes, and the 
incentive to the ambition of pupils ; the general value of higher 
intelligence; the enhanced price of real estate as the result of 
good educational facilities — all these things should be and can 
be made intelligible to the voters of the town by personal ex- 
planations to individuals, by a public address to a meeting 
called for the purpose, by appeals through the press, and by 
other means at the disposal of the intelligent friends of educa- 
tion and progress. 

Perhaps the most effective argument with some would be 
the simple arithmetical proof that a town might enjoy the ben- 
efits of a high school under the law, actually without cost, or 



00 

even with, a pecuniary gain. Without injuring the district 
schools of the town, but, on the contrary, to their decided 
profit, female teachers might be employed in them the year 
through, instead of for the summer only. The slight tax for 
the support of the high school might thus be saved, or possibly 
more than saved to particular districts, by the diminished cost 
of winter schools. 

Or, again, in some towns the district schools might profitably 
confine their sessions to two short spring and fall terms for 
the benefit of the younger pupils, leaving the educational ener- 
gies of the town to center entirely in the high school during 
the winter months. This course is suggested by one of the 
most experienced and successful normal-school men of the 
State. 

But when a town is opposed to and refuses to vote the es- 
tablishment of a high school, then it may be for the interest 
of a village district therein to organize the same unaided. The 
law allows the single district to do so, and to the school es- 
tablished by it properly qualified pupils from other parts of 
the town may be admitted on payment of tuition. 

In cities and incorporated villages existing "graded" or "high 
schools" may be reorganized, under the law, into free high 
schools and share in the bounty of the State, by complying 
with the proper conditions. 

It should be understood in all cases that the design of the 
law is not to grant gratuitous aid to any school, whether in 
a town, village, or city. Something must be returned as an 
equivalent. There must either be a new creation of a school 
not before in existence, or a reorganization and improvement 
after a common plan. There may be a few exceptions to this 
in the case of schools already performing well the work desig- 
nated and called for by the new law, but State bounty to these 
is simply giving them what they have already earned and de- 
served. The great majority of the schools must be new crea- 
tions, or reorganizations with improvements. It is expected 
that the local authorities will in all cases employ the State 
bounty either to create anew or to improve what already exists, 
if not already up to the proper standard. The state bounty is 
not designed to take the place of the district, village, town, or 



66 

city appropriation, but simply to supplement the latter for the 
purposes of improvement. If a district, village, or town ob- 
tains three or five hundred dollars from the State, it is ex- 
pected that every dollar thereof will be devoted to more effi- 
cient or more extended instruction. 

FROM THE REPORT OF WILLIAM C. WHTTFORD— 1878. 

The old-fashioned school district must have been the product 
of accident rather than of intelligent design. Originating in 
New England, it naturally spread westward. So long as 
nothing but elementary instruction was expected from the 
public schools, and while a system of academies furnished, to 
a considerable extent, that of a higher grade, the defects of 
the public school system were not so seriously felt. Then, it 
is to be noted that Massachusetts, as early as 1647, required 
every town, with one hundred families, to maintain a "gram- 
mer school," which meant a school that could fit for the univer- 
sity. 

For many years past, a better plan than that of single, in- 
dependent districts has been earnestly advocated, and to some 
extent introduced. In 1852, Pennsylvania made the town, 
borough, and city, the unit for school purposes. Iowa adopted 
the same system in 1858. Massachusetts introduced it grad- 
ually, and for several years it has been universal in that State 
The other New England states are moving in the same direc- 
tion, as is also New York. Ohio and Indiana have tried a mix- 
ture of the two systems, but without satisfactory results. In 
the former state, the people are calling earnestly for the town 
system proper. Wisconsin should not be the last state to 
secure this great improvement. It is time for her to take a 
step "forward," and make the system obligatory. 

The advantages of the system may be briefly restated, at 
this time, under the following heads: 

1. It would promote economy and simplicity. A town with 
ten districts, not an unusual number, requires the services of 
thirty school officers, besides those of the town clerk, the town 
treasurer, and the town board, in the administration of school 
affairs. A board of five directors, with the town treasurer, 



67 

would do all the business more intelligently, more efficiently, 
and at less expense. 

2. It would aid in securing peace and quiet. As shown by 
the numerous appeals taken to the state superintendent, and 
by the correspondence of the office, there are constant disputes 
about district boundaries, the lawfulness of the action of dis- 
trict meetings or district boards, to the great detriment of the 
schools. Under the consolidated system, this trouble would 
mostly disappear. Each voter would have, as now, a voice in 
the election of the school officers, and in the determination of 
the school policy. Each taxpayer would pay his school taxes 
for the general good, and be allowed to send to the most con- 
venient and appropriate school. 

3. School taxes would be uniform and equitable. Public 
schools are for the public good, and should be supported at 
the public charge. A state school tax, supplementing the in- 
come of the school fund, would leave the local taxation lighter, 
and the burden of sustaining the schools would be still further 
equalized. 

4. The schools would also be much more uniform, and of bet- 
ter average quality. At present, we find an excellent school, 
perhaps, in one district, and in the next a poor one; chiefly, 
sometimes, because the people are poor. But the state can- 
not afford to tolerate poor schools. 

5. Graded schools are generally out of the question, under the 
present system. Under a town system, they could be much 
more readily introduced, as increase of population, and the ad- 
vancement of pupils might render it desirable. A considerable 
number of towns could at once establish a central school of 
higher grade, open to all pupils of sufficient advancement. 
This would, in effect, grade the other schools. Some advant- 
ages, beyond those of elementary instruction, would thus be 
attainable, more especially in towns embracing villages. 

6. A course of study could be much more readily introduced, 
and made uniform, if desired, for the county. 

7. Text-books and apparatus could be uniformly and ad- 
equately supplied, and at reasonable rates. 

8. Teachers would be employed for their fitness, and longer 
retained, and would do far better work. A superior teacher 



68 

would naturally "be secured for the central school of highest 
grade, if established, who would diffuse correct methods of 
teaching, through all the schools. 

9. Supervision, now almost a nullity, would be exercised 
by such head teacher, or by the secretary d¥ the town board; 
and the general care of the schools on the part of the county 
superintendent, would be properly supplemented. 

10. School-houses would be better, and better located, the 
law providing, as it does now, for the equalization of cost, for 
a series of years. 

11. Town libraries would naturally and readily connect them- 
selves with a town system of schools, greatly to the public 
benefit. 

12. Statistics would be uniform, reliable, and of some value. 

No human system is perfect. The school system here ad- 
vocated, opens possibilities nevertheless which can not be real- 
ized under the present one, except in rare cases. It would 
certainly render it practicable to make the bulk of the country 
schools much better than they now are; and the system should, 
therefore, be enacted into law, without much longer delay. 
The present permissive law was intended as an experiment. 
Though well devised, in the main, it retains too much of the 
present system, and should be carefully recast. 

In the report for 1881, Superintendent Whitford says: 
The experience of the state has confirmed my conviction from 
the beginning that this system would never obtain, on the op- 
tional plan, a general foothold in our towns. Our citizens must 
accept the methods employed by other states for its adoption, 
before its superior advantages will be known throughout our 
own state. A law enforcing its introduction into all the 
towns, where not now in operation, would doubtless receive at 
first considerable opposition, but it would shortly be ac- 
quiesced in by the school-districts. The arguments for the 
system I have presented in my former annual reports, and also 
for this procedure of the state in making it obligatory. It 
seems to me that the people are a well prepared now as they 
will be at any time in the next dozen years, to adopt the 
changes, and to use them profitably in their management of 
the public schools. 



69 



FROM REPORT OF SUPT. ROBERT GRAHAM, 1878. 

In 1886 Hon. Robert Graham included in his biennial report 
an important table of statistics, based upon reports of town 
clerks for the year 1885, which is here reproduced as the most 
effective presentation of the inequalities and injustice of the 
independent district system. It will be observed that it in- 
cludes reports from nearly every district in counties where 
this system was in operation. The table shows by counties 
the highest and lowest valuation of taxable property in school 
districts; the highest, lowest and average per cent, of school 
tax in school districts ; the greatest, least and average number 
of persons of school age in school districts; and the highest, 
lowest and average tax per capita of school population in 
school districts. 

A comparison should be made of the columns headed re- 
spectively "highest per cent, of school tax in any district" and 
"lowest per cent, of school tax in any district." For purposes 
of illustration, in Marinette county the former amounts to five 
per cent, in one district while the latter is one and one-tenth 
mills in another district. In the former district the charge 
on every dollar of assessed valuation for maintaining a public 
school was over forty times as great as in the case of the latter 
district — an inequality that could not possibly occur were the 
township system in vogue. In the column headed, "lowest 
valuation of any school district " it may be seen that districts 
whose valuation in 1885 was less than $3,000 were called upon 
to maintain a public school for six months during the school 
year. There is little doubt that the valuation of districts in 
the same towns reached as high as $40,000. One of the form 
er districts was reported from Iowa county and is given a 
valuation of $2,300. Inequality in the school population is 
also evident. Iowa county furnishes a district with but six 
children of school age while Jackson county has one with five 
Without doubt neighboring districts contained at least fifty 
children. The table is valuable in that it furnishes reliable 
data in proof of the disadvantages that attend the independent 
district system. 



70 



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73 



FROM THE REPORT OF SUPT. J. B. THAYER, 1890. 

COMMON SCHOOLS. 

The two years, since the last report of the department, have 
been marked by unusual activity on the part of school officers 
in all portions of the state. The State Superintendent, with 
the aid of additional clerical help, afforded by recent legisla- 
tion, has been able to reach county superintendents and other 
school officers, with circulars of information and inquiries, 
more effectively than in preceding years. It is doubtful wheth- 
er any two years in the history of the state have exhibited more 
interest in all grades of school work, or that more has been 
accomplished, than during the past two years. 

It may be truthfully said that Wisconsin has, theoretically. 
a complete system of public education, outlined by provision c 
in the constitution, obtained when the state was organized. 
It may also be truthfully said that there are inherent defects 
in the frame work of our rural school system of organization 
and management, which can be remedied only by an abandon- 
ment of the present independent district system, and the re 
organization of such districts on the basis of a larger unit for 
purposes of local taxation and supervision. Excessive and 
unequal burdens of local taxation, for the support of goot 
schools, the intense conservatism of isolated agricultural com- 
munities, cheap teachers, frequent changes, neighborhood 
quarrels, religious antagonism, race prejudices, and nepotism 
of members of school boards in the employment of teachers, 
are hindrances which lie across the pathway of progress, and 
negative, in a great measure, the best efforts and agencies 
directed towards the improvement of country schools. 

It is a clear conviction, in the mind of the State Superin- 
tendent, that the common schools of country districts can nev- 
er attain, under the present independent system, the standard 
of excellency and efficiency already attained in the graded 
schools of cities and villages. There is no phase of the school 
work in Wisconsin that merits more the thoughtful and care- 



ful attention of educators, legislators, and friends of common 
schools, than the defective, cumbersome, inequitable and 
wasteful machinery, instituted for the support and manage- 
ment of schools in rural communities. 

The economic and educational advantages of the aggregation 
of the districts of a town, or a similar unit, under a single board 
of education, have been fully demonstrated by experience in 
this and in other states, and have been fully set forth in pre- 
ceding reports of this department. 

The comparisons, exhibited in the summaries of statistics, 
show, that while the amount of work done, estimated by days 
taught and attendance of pupils, has been slightly increased 
over the work of the two years covered by the next preceding 
report, there was a marked improvement in the quality of in- 
struction, estimated from the experience and qualifications oi 
teachers employed; from a better supply of text-books; from 
a more general introduction of the course of study, resulting ir 
better organization, more systematic work, and more intelli 
gent direction and supervision. Measured by the standard of 
results which are possible, desirable and attainable, the actual 
condition is not satisfactory. 



THE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM OF SCHOOLS. 

From a paper on "Recent School Legislation in Other States," 
prepared by Oliver E. Wells, State Superintendent, and 
read before the Wisconsin State Teachers' Association, at 
Madison, Wis., December 26, 1893. 

The most interesting feature of recent school legislation is 
the abolition of the independent district system of school gov- 
ernment and the substitution for it of the township system. 
At the last session of the legislature of the state of Maine the 
district system was abolished, the new township law- to take 
effect March 1, 1894. The Vermont legislature also at its latest 
session enacted a statute requiring the township system from 
and after April 1, 1893. New Hampshire adopted the township 



system iii 1885, Massachusetts in 1882. Bhode Island and 
Connecticut nave the township system, although they have 
not absolutely abolished the independent district system. 
Both states are gradually abandoning the district for the 
township system. Already one half of the population in each 
state is under that system and each shows annual gains for it 
Iowa has a township system though not compulsory and not 
exclusively in use. Indiana has had a rigorous township sys- 
tem since 1859. In that state all township affairs are managed 
by a single trustee, and county affairs by three commis- 
sioners. The township trustee performs the duties of our town 
boards as well as of school district officers. He lays out roads, 
builds bridges, organizes school districts, fixes their boundaries, 
establishes the sites, builds and equips the schoolhouses, 
employs the teachers and fixes their compensation. The town 
trustees choose the county superintendent. The county super- 
intendent, with the town trustees and chairman of the school 
trustees in incorporated towns and cities, constitute a county 
board of education, a quasi corporation with limited powers. 
The Indiana code represents the strongest type of centralized 
authority which it has been my privilege thus far to study. 
I am not able to state from personal observation whether it 
results in a more efficient administration of school affairs or 
not. The school men assure me that the people are more 
intensely interested in the choice of their town trustees and 
county commissioner than in the election of the state and 
national tickets. 

I know from official reports that other states have the town- 
ship system, but I have not thought it best to speak of states 
which I have not personally visited. It should not be forgotten 
in passing that Wisconsin has had a township system for 
nearly twenty-five years and that is in operation in about sixty 
towns. Its general adoption has been urged by all the state 
superintendents and by many county superintendents since 
the first passage of the law. The latest official reports of the 
superintendents of important states like New York, New 
Jersey, and Minnesota contain urgent and eloquent pleas for 
the adoption of the town system. 

The Northeastern Kansas Teachers' Association last spring 



76 

adopted the following resolution : " Resolved, That because the 
independent school district system is responsible for the exist- 
ing unequal and unjust taxation, which condition gives great 
irregularity in the length of the school term, and which, also, 
reduces the wages of teachers so as to prevent the natural 
and proper growth of the profession, we, therefore, favor the 
township system of districting and government as a remedy 
for these evils." 

The Michigan State Teachers' Association, now in session 
at Lansing, has as one of its chief topics of discussion, "The 
Township Unit System." 

HOW THE CHANGE TO TBE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM IS 
EFFECTED. 

The usual method of procedure in changing from the district 
to the township system is to constitute each town in the state 
a single district for school purposes and to abolish the divisions 
of the town into school districts before existing. They next 
provide that immediately upon the enactment of such a law 
the towns shall take possession of all schoolhouses, lands, 
apparatus and other property owned by the school districts. 
There is then, at the earliest practicable date, an appraisement 
by competent persons of the property so taken, and at the 
first annual assessment thereafter a tax is levied upon the 
whole town equal to the aggregate appraisement of the several 
districts, and there is then remitted to the taxpayers of each 
such district the said appraised valuation of the property so 
taken. Thus the town practically purchases all the district 
property of each school district. In the case of joint districts 
a joint appraisement is made by like officers of the town 
interested and the remission of taxes is made to each part of 
the joint district according to the determination of the board. 

The corporate powers of a district are continued, so far as 
they may be necesary, for the purpose of settling its affairs, 
meeting its liabilities and enforcing its rights, and any prop- 
erty held in trust by any school district by virtue of gift, devise 
or bequest for the benefit of said district is secured to the dis- 
trict to be held and used according to the terms thereof, the 
school board of the district of which it forms a part being 



77 

made its agent to expend the income of any suck trust prop- 
erty that is devoted to the support of the school. 

The town board of school directors is constituted a body 
corporate and given the usual powers of a corporation for pub- 
lic purposes, such as the power to sue and be sued, contracting 
and being contracted with, holding real and personal property 
and selling the same. 

Permission is given to organize joint districts in cases where 
natural features prevent the maintenance of efficient sub- 
districts. Power is given, in some cases to the town at its 
annual meeting and in other cases to the board of directors, 
to determine the number and location of its schoolhouses, or 
to discontinue them or change their location on conditions 
proper to preserve the just rights and privileges of the inhab- 
itants for whose benefit such districts were originally estab- 
lished. 

REASOINS FOR THE CHA.N6E IN OTHER STATES. 

In New England the change to the town system has been 
urged upon the ground of a more equitable distribution of the 
burden of support. The Ehode Island reports show a rate 
of taxation fourteen times as great in one district as in another, 
the rate upon one hundred dollars of valuation varying all the 
way from 2 3-4 cents to 38 1-4 cents. Connecticut shows a 
similar disproportion. 

In the annual report of the state superintendent of New 
York for 1893, two districts are given for one town in each 
county, the rate of taxation and the cost per capita for educat- 
ing children. The rate of taxation varies from 1.2 mills for a 
single district in Wayne county to 43.1 mills for a district in 
Colchester county. District No. 6 in the town of De Witt, On- 
ondaga county, has a rate of .9 of a mill, while No.13 in the 
same town pays 7 mills. No. 1, town of Pinckney, Lewis county 
pays 4.8 mills, while No. 10 in the same town pays 37.1 mills. 
Two districts in the town of Farmersville, Cattaraugus county, 
pay respectively |5.66 and f 58.11 per capita; two in South 
Bristol, Ontario county, $5.43 and $60.37 per capita; two in 



Northfield, Kichraond county, pay respectively f 11.25 per cap- 
ita and |181.85. That is to say, the rate of taxation is seven 
times as great in one district as in another in the same town, 
and the per capita cost of educating a child is eleven times as 
great. 

CONDITIONS IN WISCONSIN. 

The assessed value of th a districts in Wisconsin varies from 
f 4,000 or f5,000 to f 130,000 or f 140,000. There are sixty dis- 
tricts in Wood county, 85 in Juneau, 54 in Adams and 98 in 
Vernon whose assessed valuation is less than $25,000. The 
rate of taxation for school purposes in some districts must 
therefore be many times as great as in other towns. 

It is urged that under the district system too many schools 
are supported. State Superintendent Luce of Maine in his 
annual report for 1892, says the average enrollment of pupils 
last year was less than twenty-five, and that the number of 
schools having less than the average enrollment was greatly 
in excess of the number having a large enrollment. He adds, 
" There are probably between 1,000 and 1,200 existing schools 
in the state whose enrollment is twelve or less. A careful 
investigation running through a series of years has shown 
that between 600 and 800 schools could be abolished without 
detriment." 

In our own state we have 183 districts whose average attend- 
ance last year was not more than 5; 858 others not above 10; 
2,481 more not exceeding 20. In other words 3,522 country 
districts, about three fifths of the total number, have an aver- 
age attendance not exceeding 20, and about two fifths above 
that average with the great majority near the lower margin. 

If these figures are approximately true the adoption of the 
township system would greatly promote economy. Superin- 
tendent Luce says, " Assuming that there are 600 unnecessary 
schools — and there are neare r 1,000 — that it cost per week 
for each one half the average for all, and that, each was kept 
for the average length of all, there was thus wasted the sum 
of $75,276." Following the same method, a careful estimate 
of the amount of money wasted upon unnecessary schools in 
Wisconsin is $190,000. 



79 



ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED. 

More effective administration of school affairs would be 
secured by reducing the number of officers and increasing 
their authority and responsibility. The average number, of 
districts to the town throughout the state is about six, although 
in certain cases the number in a single town exceeds twelve. 
It is useless to expect eighteen men in each town to give care- 
ful attention to district affairs. There is not enough in it. 
Divided among so many it is petty business. But if all the 
business of all the districts in the town were placed in the 
hands of a single board, consisting of five or seven members, 
there would be enough business of importance to command 
their time and consideration. With schoolhouses to be built 
or repaired, supplies to be furnished, six or more teachers to 
be engaged for the year, the need of provision for advanced 
instruction in the town to be considered, these and other ques- 
tions would interest the most capable men in the town. 
In no other way can many intelligent men be pursuaded to 
serve long upon school boards. Under the present system 
men will continue to be elected because it is their " turn/' or 
to keep down expenses, or to protect home interests in service 
and expenditure of money. We now require more than eigh- 
teen thousand officers where three thousand would do better. 

Under the town system each sub-district would soon find 
it to its interest to select its best man as representative upon 
the town school board. Only thus could it hope to secure good 
school accommodations with proportionate supplies, as long 
terms with as capable a teacher, and just consideration in the 
distribution of benefits and the allotment of burdens. Enlight- 
ened self-interest would prompt it to continue indefinitely 
in service, men who had intelligently managed its affairs. 

MORE CONVENIENT SCHOOLHOUSES. 

The boundaries of many school districts in their impudent 
disregard for justice and fair dealing would shame the jagged 
outlines of any congressional district I ever saw under a polit- 
ical gerrymander. I once knew of a school district in this state 
which ran irregularly across two townships. Its boundaries 



80 

looked as if they had been drawn by chain lightning, upon the 
surfaces temporarily tilted, and had then been distorted to 
serve the purposes of private greed. Pupils from /remote 
parts could attend school in their own district by traveling 
twelve miles over routes upon opposite sides of the townships 
and passing two schoolhouses upon each route. 

Under the township system each family could, within reason- 
able limits, send its children to the most convenient school. 
As everyone would pay the school tax into the common town 
fund, each could ordinarily claim the most accessible school 
privileges, which are not always furnished by the nearest 
school. 

The town system would mitigate, and, generally, neutralize 
local feuds and jealousies. Only those who have served in 
the state department of education can well appreciate the 
bitterness, vindictiveness, injustice, the incalculable and irre- 
parable injury resulting from neighborhood strife. The suc- 
cessful faction locates the schoolhouse where it will be least 
convenient for the opposite faction, perhaps where it will be 
inaccessible to many pupils, refuses adequate accommodations 
for a majority of the patrons, hires the most incompetent per- 
son obtainable, particularly if such person is related to their 
party or is especially obnoxious to the defeated party, denies 
a hearing upon lawful petitions for redress of grievances, and 
through the children works the trouble into the school and 
destroys its influence. With a town board, the majority of 
whose members would be remote from the scene of contention, 
the single possible representative of a faction could have little 
influence. He would generally be told that the board could 
not be a party to local contests and that the schools must be 
protected from them. 

MAKE THE BETTER SCHOOLS THE STANDARD. 

It is believed that the adoption of the township system 
would make the schools of the most intelligent and progressive 
districts the standard. A town having practically paid for all 
schoolhouses and being responsible for the construction of 
needed ones, the demand from any sub-district would be for a 



8L 

schoolhouse equal to the best in the town. The claim for it 
would be based upon the justice of their baring equal accom- 
modations, since tbey pay tbe same rate of taxation upon their 
property. They would further demand an equal equipine**! 
and as good a teacher as any district had, with as long a term. 
The result would be that all sub-districts would have good 
schoolhouses, well equipped, with longer terms of schooling 
and under more competent teachers. 

The natural tendency of contracting with the same board 
would be to contract for an entire year, and thus the term of 
employment of individual teachers would generally be 
increased. The schools being better equipped and better 
taught would attract and hold the pupils, and their attend- 
ance in suitable buildings, properly ventilated and kept, with 
suitable surroundings, would result in more manly and orderly 
pupils. Thus school advantages and expenses would be equal- 
ized. A more equitable apportionment of public funds would 
be secured under our laws, the distribution of local taxation 
being equalized. There would also be greater disinterested 
ness and impartiality in the employment of teachers, com- 
petency not kinship or favoritism becoming the basis of selec- 
tion. 

Opportunity would be given for the selection of uniform 
text-books for all the schools in the town and for furnishing 
them to the schools at the lowest possible cost. 

BETTER SUPERVISION. 

Our present, township law practically makes the secretary 
of the school board a town superintendent. It requires him 
to organize and grade the schools and to assist the teachers 
in classifying and arranging them. He must also visit each 
school in the town at least twice during each term, consult 
with and advise the teachers in regard to the methods of 
instruction and government, and report to the board such meas- 
ures for the improvement of the schools as his experience and 
observation shall dictate. This arrangement makes easy 
co-operation between the county superintendent and the town 
board in the supervision of the schools. It will not be dim- 



82 

cult for the county superintendent to meet the board at suit- 
able times for consultation and advice regarding better admin- 
istration and to visit the schools in company with the secre- 
tary. 

The proper grading and classifying of the schools being 
required by statute, the adoption of proper courses of study 
and fidelity to them, would be insured. For fifteen years a 
persistent effort has been made to secure the general adop- 
tion of a course of study, and many thousand dollars have been 
expended in the publication of courses. The Manual has 
gone through seven editions. Ten thousand copies of the sixth 
edition were published in 1890, and fifteen thousand copies of 
the seventh edition in 1891. The supply of Manuals is 
exhausted, and another edition will be prepared and put into 
circulation during the coming year. The universal adoption 
of the township system would afford some hope of tracing 
benefits in some degree commensurate with the large expend- 
ture for the publication and distribution of the course of study. 

EXPERIENCE PROVES ITS VALUE. 

It is not contended that the mere adoption of the township 
system would secure good schools. A system of schools is 
not a self-operating, self-directing institution. It requires 
constant, vigilant and intelligent management to make it 
effective. Under our form of government no community can 
have, nor does it deserve, better government than it secures by 
its own voluntary action. The contention here is that there 
are many and great evils inherent in the district system, 
which are not necessarily or properly a part of the township 
system. The universal testimony of all communities which 
have changed from the district to the township system estab- 
lishes to the fullest extent the claims made for the latter sys- 
tem by its friends before its adoption. The management of local 
affairs still remains with the patrons of the school, each com- 
munity electing its representative upon the board, and the 
whole town voting upon the expenditure of money and the 
furnishing of schoolhouses and supplies. The advantage of 
the change will be decidedly with the rural communities, 



83 

since the villages and cities now maintain nine or ten months' 
school in buildings better constructed and equipped. Circum- 
stances naturally prevent any considerable extension of this 
amount of schooling, but a considerable extension is both pos- 
sible and desirable in the district schools. In New Hamp- 
shire, where no minimum requirement of schooling is demanded 
as a prerequisite for the apportionment of public moneys, the 
average amount of schooling in the rural districts was nine- 
teen and a fraction weeks. The change to the township sys- 
tem went into effect in 1886, and the average number of weeks 
of school in the rural districts last year was twenty-four and 
a fraction weeks. In other words, the change from the dis- 
trict to the township system has increased the number of 
weeks of school in the country districts about 25 per cent, in 
seven years. As before stated, the intelligent and progressive 
districts will set the pace. Since all are equally taxed for 
school purposes, all will demand equal advantages, including 
length of term. Thus the gains will be almost wholly with 
tilie country schools. 

EQUALIZATION OF ADVANTAGES. 

An equalization of advantages can hardly be expected with- 
out inconvenience. The richer districts must naturally make 
some concessions involving a trifling increase of expenditure 
for school purposes. They certainly cannot, with any degree 
of fairness, maintain that they ought to have superior advan- 
tages at less cost than their more unfortunate neighbors. The 
crushing burden of taxation will be somewhat alleviated in 
the poorer districts, while an increase of school advantages 
will be gained. This application of the principle of fair play 
cannot consistently be objected to by the well-to-do classes. If 
the oft repeated assertion of the dependence of the perpetuity 
of American institutions upon universal educaton has any sig- 
nificance, respect for the common welfare necessitites a read- 
justment of burdens and an equalization of benefits. 

Opposition to change of administration is natural, but no 
more significant in an effort to improve the public school sys- 



84 

tem than to secure improvement in agencies affecting the com- 
mon weal. The agricultural class is perhaps least likely to look 
with favor upon a change, yet within the memory of many still 
in the vigor of manhood the farmers have discarded the sickle 
for the cradle and that for the hand-rake reaper, which in turn 
was succeeded by the Marsh harvester and the self-binder. 
Similar improvement has been made in the implements for 
threshing and cleaning grain. Since the farmers have not 
been averse to improvement in farm implements, it is to be 
expected that improvements in school management and a more 
equitable distribution of their advantages and the cost of their 
maintenance will be as heartily and rapidly welcomed and 
adopted. 



85 



FEEE HIGH SCHOOLS. 

Section 46. This section is a more definite statement of the 
law conferring authority upon municipalities to establish free 
high schools. The two classes of high schools are more dis- 
tinctly defined. There is added a limitation upon the number 
of such schools that may be established in one municipality. 
A few cities in this state are composed of independent school 
districts. There are two or more districts in each of those 
cities. To allow the establishment of more than two free high 
schools within one city would work an injustice to cities of 
equal size that constitute but one school district and are al- 
lowed state aid for but one free high school. 

Section 47. There is no material change in the present law 
made by this section. 

Section 48. The language is simplified and made to conform 
to the township system of school government. 

Section 49. This section constitutes every high school dis- 
trict a corporation with the powers necessary to accomplish 
the purposes of its organization. The name by which such 
corporation shall be known is also designated. This is new. 
Its necessity had been suggested by the supreme court of this 
state. In the administration of the law relating to high schools 
many difficulties hare been encountered, owing to uncer- 
tainty as to the present legal character of such districts. See 
77 Wis., 532. 

Section 50* This section is a revision of the -present law in 
the language employed. The only material change constitutes 
the town treasurer ex officio the treasurer of the free high 
school district established in districts under the township sys- 
tem. This arrangement avoids the establishment of a new 
office, and makes the safety of the high school funds as secure 
as those of the town. 

Section 51. No change in the present law is embodied in 
this section except that contained in the last sentence. The 
present law is restated in a more definite form. No new pow- 



86 

ers are conferred upon school boards. The last clause makes 
it the duty of school boards to comply with the laws of the 
state in maintaining high schools until the district is dissolved 
by vote of the people. 

Section 52. Provision is made in this section for the mailing 
of reports of high schools not located in cities. Provision is 
also made for special reports directly to the state superinten- 
dent. As these schools come under his supervision and are 
inspected under his direction, occasional reports on special 
features of their management are essential to his intelligent 
action. 

Section 53. This section provides for the formation of joint 
high school districts and for their dissolution. Our present 
law does not afford any means whereby such districts may be 
dissolved. Several cases have demonstrated the need of such 
provision. 

Section 54. This is an entirely new provision. There are 
strong reasons in support of it. High schools are organized 
pursuant to a vote of the people of the district. Their con- 
tinuance should be subject to the will of the same authority. 
No community should be forced to give a reluctant support to 
a high school. 

Section 55. The length of the annual term is increased by 
this section from three to six months, and the annual appro- 
priation is increased from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars. 
The present appropriation to each school has become so small 
that it barely suffices as an inducement to cities to continue 
their schools under state supervision. The increase contem- 
plated will operate to strengthen the entire system and insure 
permanence. 

Section 56. The length of term for this class of schools is 
increased by one month, the appropriation remains the same. 

Section 57. The only change wrought by this section is the 
provision for joint high school districts which is rendered nec- 
essary by the existence of such districts. 

Section 58. This section consists of a brief and definite 
statement of the present law. 

Section 59. This section supplies a defect in existing laws 



by defining the legal qualification of assistants and 
providing the means by which, such qualification may be ob- 
tained. As the greater part of high school instruction is given 
by assistants, their equipment is an essential consideration. 



COUNTY SUPEBINTENDENTS. 

Section 60. This section requires an official bond of the 
county superintendent. The law in its present form makes 
the county superintendent liable to any town in his district 
for pecuniary losses resulting from his negligence, but pro- 
vides no means for its enforcement against irresponsible par- 
ties. This provision is designed to remedy this defect. 

Section 61. This section is entirely new. It prescribes 
legal qualifications for holding the office of county superinten- 
dent. The law is severe in its requirements relating to the 
qualifications of teachers in all grades of the public schools 
and visits upon districts the forfeiture of their state money for 
hiring teachers who do not possess the required evidence of 
legal qualification. It is consistent with sound sense that 
similar requirements be exacted of officers who are to pass 
judgment upon the competency of teachers and issue to them 
certificates of qualification. County superintendents are 
charged with the duty of advising with and directing the work 
of teachers within their respective jurisdictions. It is man- 
ifest that candidates for the office of superintendent of schools 
should possess certificates equivalent to the highest grade 
they are called upon to issue. In the mat- 

ter of the removal of F. A. Strupp, Superintendent of schools 
for Marathon County, Hon. Chas. V. Bardeen, Judge of the 
Sixteenth Circuit of Wisconsin held that "want of sufficient 
educational acquirements" constituted "incompetency" within 
the meaning of the statute sufficient to justify removal from 
office. 

Section 62. Under subdivision 2 of this section the county 
Superintendent is required to make a report of his official vis- 
its to the secretary of the board of directors. This require- 



ment will create a closer relation between the chief school 
officer in each county and the local authority in each town. 
Such reports will materially aid boards of directors in the 
management of the schools under their charge. 

Subdivision 3 is entirely new. The meetings contemplated 
will be effectual in creating a deeper interest in school work 
on the part of school officers and will lead to more intelligent 
management on their part. They will also afford superinten- 
dents greater opportunity to systematize and strengthen ihe 
work of all the schools under their care. 

Sub-division 4 supplies a much needed requirement. At 
present a superintendent in a majority of cases enters upon 
the duties of his office without a line of record to inform him 
concerning the items specified in this subdivision. The per- 
manent records for which the clause provides will furnish an 
incoming superintendent with information necessary to the 
intelligent discharge of his duties. 

Subdivision 5. The superintendent's powers are enlarged 
by this subdivision to the extent of ordering improvements to 
an amount not to exceed fifty dollars instead of twenty-five 
dollars as the present law provides. Experience shows that 
in some cases twenty-five dollars is inadequate to remove 
nuisances and make necessary improvements. In subdivision 
6 the law is so modified as to impose the entire responsibility 
for condemning schoolhouses upon county superintendents. 
Under the present law the responsibiity is shared by town 
chairmen. The administration of our present law is unsatis- 
factory and furnishes strong reasons for placing the entire re 
sponsibility upon the principal school officer. The opportunity 
to appeal from the superintendent's order excludes the prob 
ability of unfairness in his decisions. In subdivision 8, a 
very slight change is introduced consisting of the requirement 
relating to reporting the names of boards of directors to the 
State Superintendent. Subdivision 11 embraces the sub- 
stance of Ch. 65, laws 1885. 

Section 63. This section embraces Ch. 215, laws 1885, and 
Oh. 80, laws 1887. The purpose and intent of the law are 
animation in it unnecessary for the higher grades of certifi- 
preserved; the language alone is changed. 



t9 

Section 64. This section is entirely new and is framed in 
the interest of competent and effectiTe school supervision. The 
present law is defective in that a superintendent's responsibil- 
ity for good work is not specifically provided for. This leads 
to a frequeDt neglect of the duties charged upon this officer to 
such an extent as to degrade the importance of the office in 
public estimation. Public school interests are greatly impaired 
in consequence of such incompetent and indifferent supervi- 
sion. The enactment of this section into law can in no way 
affect superintendents who properly perform the work which 
the acceptance of the office imposes upon them. 

Section 65. This section is changed by the addition of "im- 
moral conduct" to the causes for the removal of superinten- 
dents from office. The obvious need of good moral conduct in 
the practices of the principal school officer in a county justifies 
the insertion of this enumeration of immorality among the 
causes for removal. 



EXAMINATION AND CEETIFICATES. 

There is no material change in sections 66 and 67. Under 
section 68 English literature is substituted for physiology in 
the requirements made of applicants for the second grade cer- 
tificate and general' history is substituted for higher algebra 
and solid geometry in the branches required for the first grade 
certificate. These changes are based upon the class work re- 
quired of teachers. Physiology was placed among the third 
grade branches several years ago, which rendered a second ex- 
cates. More emphasis is now placed upon the study of 
English in our common schools than formerly, hence the de- 
mand for a more thorough preparation in literature on the 
part of teachers. Our present laws overload the examination 
for a first grade certificate with mathematics to the exclusion 
of studies that give general information. The scope of the 
examination in mathematics is equivalent to the present re- 
quirements in this branch for the life state certificate, ex- 
ceeding by far the necessities for competent instruction in 
mathematics in our common schools. The substitution of gen- 



90 

eral history for higher algebra will therefore prove beneficial. 
Besides these changes the language of this section is made 
more concise than in the present law. The same is true with 
reference to section 69. 

Section 72 contains material changes. At present the duties 
of the state board of examiners are limited to the examination 
of applicants for the limited and unlimited state certificates. 
The change enlarges these duties by investing the board with 
authority to determine the diplomas granted by colleges and 
normal schools located without this state, that may be counter- 
signed by the state superintendent and made state certificates. 
This board is required also, to determine what state certifi- 
cates shall be deemed equivalent to the Wisconsin state cer- 
tificates. 

Section 73. Botany is placed among the studies required 
for the limited state certificate. This certificate qualifies to 
teach high schools having three year courses. As these 
courses include the study of botany, the change is necessary. 
The addition of English literature and general history to the 
studies embraced in the examination for the first grade county 
certificate renders unnecessary their enumeration under the 
requirements for either state certificate. 

Section 74. The change in this section is rendered necessary 
by the change discussed above, which places upon the state 
board of examiners the duty of judging the merits of certifi- 
cates granted in other states when their owners desire to teach 
in this state. 

Section 75. There is no change in the law; the language 
used is more clear and concise. 

Section 76. This section vests in the state board of ex- 
aminers the authority now exercised by the state superinten- 
dent to determine what diplomas granted by state and foreign 
colleges and foreign normal schools shall be made equivalent 
to Wisconsin state certificates. At present diplomas granted 
by foreign state normal schools are not countersigned. The 
reason for this change is stated briefly above 

Sections 77 and 78. These sections embody the present law. 






Library of Congress 
Branch Bindery, 1902 



